Time to enforce the name holding expiration rules

[BurtHutt]

1 hour ago, Coyotedancer said:

 

I actually disagree that it should be account-based... I think if holding the name of a largely (or completely-) inactive character is important to a player, then it' s not too much of an ask for them to log onto the character periodically. It's a time investment to have to go through and ping all of your Inactives, sure... But it's also a way to make holding a substantial number of "Nabbed just in case I ever want to use them"-names (Which absolutely DOES happen) less attractive. That's a good thing, I think. 

I think I'd be fine with applying the HC rules to ACCOUNTS that have been inactive for over 1 year. I know a ton of people came here, made stuff and then left....never to return. 

 

But! I think this may take away from Dev resources and if that's the case then leave it alone. They're already short-staffed!

[Saikochoro]

51 minutes ago, Lockpick said:

 

Or you could just announce that you will not make any changes to the current system and just shut down the entire issue.  The current system is exactly how it was on Live.  Nothing is being broken by the current system.  It has worked since 2004.  The number of players on HC is drastically reduced when compared to Live, so the number of names taken on HC compared to Live is likely much less.  Why make this an issue at all?  I would suggest just shutting it down by stating you do not plan to make any changes.

 

After all, from a HC team standpoint there is nothing but downside.  You make a mistake people get upset at you.  People lose a name and they get upset at you. 

 

I think I’m in this crowd. It may not be a perfect system, but it’s not broken. It’s also certainly not the only game that doesn’t allow name duplicates.  
 

I think the risks described by the GM heavily outweigh any benefits of a name release system. Imagine how frustrated you would be if your main name got taken while you were playing or the next morning. Imagine having 1000 hours on the character, playing it every day, and all of sudden the name is gone because the devs instituted an unnecessary name release policy.
 

Then imagine all the support tickets that the GMs would have to wade through to get things set straight. Some people may send in false tickets saying their name was taken only to try to take if from someone else who legitimately has the name. Then imagine if that ticket went through the support wars that would ensue.  Even if this type of thing didn’t happen, which I highly doubt it wouldn’t, there would still probably be a bunch of support tickets opened and arguments over names. 
 

Any policy that is instituted should check for any account activity in a long period of time (at least a year) and should exclude all level 50s at a minimum.  It’s honestly just not worth all the risk in my opinion. Yes, there are names that I want too, but I wasn’t fast enough to get them. Tough luck, it’s the same in a lot of games. 

[Coyotedancer]

Eh. If they can make sure it'll work as-planned, I still say the original system proposed more than a year ago was fair, and not a bad way to go. But then, I know that "Name Campers" exist. And they annoy me enough on principle to think there should be something in place to discourage the practice on any substantial scale.

[Bastille Boy]

I'm on board with the proposal to release character names associated with players who haven't logged on in a very long time. (Six months? A year?) I'm also totally okay with the policy that character names can be released if a character isn't leveled above 1 within some number of days.

 

I'm uncomfortable with the suggestion that regular activity on a higher-level character be required to keep their name. I have some characters I played a lot in 2019 or in early 2020 that I haven't come back to lately because I've gotten obsessed with new flavor-of-the-month builds. I've written posts about one of those characters in the roleplaying forum. Another one used to be my main. I do plan to play these characters again. I'd be sad if Herocatcher Jake or Mikey Iodine got generic-ed because I forgot to sign in to those specific characters in 60 days or 90 days or whatever.

 

 

[BadMinotaur]

Comparing Homecoming names to Live's old system doesn't work, because we had limits on the number of characters we could have; and if you wanted to claim more names than your initial allotment, you had to have a separate account (which meant purchasing a new game). That vastly limited abuse. And when CoH Freedom came about, you still had to buy character slots.

 

In Homecoming, we can make a ton of characters, and we can make as many accounts as we want, because it's all free. It's not a fair comparison in the slightest.

[Dragon Crush]

"The more evidence you show counter to my claim the more I'll be convinced I'm right" is the source of so many problems right now.

 

I'd vote for release from accounts that have been inactive for a full year, or an individual character that hasn't been logged in 16 months. Would be more than generous I think in balancing alt-itus and people making a hero/villain and forgetting about them.

[MTeague]

I've already got 40 names that I'm happy with, and honestly, given that I deliberately level slowly, and disable XP whenever I join a team, I would prefer limits based on Account activity far more than anything based on Character level. It will be a very long time before I get all 40 characters up to lvl 50. 

 

That said, I really do think there's a TON of projection going on on this topic.

I'll be very surprised if lots of "choice names" suddenly become freed up. 

I think it's very much human nature to assume the name you want but can't get is just inches away behind an unlock policy. 

It could very easily be the holder of the name is an active player, doesn't play when you play, maybe only logs on a few times a month, and simply doesn't respond to any in-game emails asking for them to rename their character. 

 

I'll trust whatever decision the GM's come up with. I'm also gratified to know they're approaching it *very* cautiously.

[Oubliette_Red]

10 hours ago, Greycat said:

That playerbase also had *years* of accounts - and far *more* acounts (180,000 active subscribers at peak - or active accounts - with some obviously inactive before and after that.) And I can't find the anniversary post with how many million characters there were. So, no, it's not, really - unless you think everyone is running (or sitting on) several hundred characters.

 

We have a *long* way to go before hitting those numbers. And the effects of the script were - well, as described.

I'll direct you towards @BadMinotaur 's earlier post:

4 hours ago, BadMinotaur said:

Comparing Homecoming names to Live's old system doesn't work, because we had limits on the number of characters we could have; and if you wanted to claim more names than your initial allotment, you had to have a separate account (which meant purchasing a new game). That vastly limited abuse. And when CoH Freedom came about, you still had to buy character slots.

 

In Homecoming, we can make a ton of characters, and we can make as many accounts as we want, because it's all free. It's not a fair comparison in the slightest.

 

[Greycat]

1 hour ago, Oubliette_Red said:

I'll direct you towards @BadMinotaur 's earlier post:

So - are you insinuating that, somehow, the small number of players we have here (and have had, by comparison) over the shorter time frame HC has been around is making anything equal to the same number of characters? Even as "name holders?" That's how your reply's reading to me.

 

I mean, when they released information, they were talking 43 million characters made. 500,000 accounts at level 50. Granted, when the scripts were run, the numbers were a little smaller, but I *highly* doubt we have even half that many here. Even with being able to "make a ton of characters, and make as many accounts as we want."

 

No, it's not a fair comparison - for the exact reasons I said. Even with BM's points, Live had a *long* stretch and far more people to make far more characters.

Edited December 12, 2020 by Greycat

[aethereal]

I never looked into it during live, but this wiki page makes the claim that there was a name release system on live.

 

https://cityofheroes.fandom.com/wiki/Character_Name_Policy

 

It seems like a lot of people on this thread are assuming that there was not.

 

[Greycat]

33 minutes ago, aethereal said:

I never looked into it during live, but this wiki page makes the claim that there was a name release system on live.

 

https://cityofheroes.fandom.com/wiki/Character_Name_Policy

 

It seems like a lot of people on this thread are assuming that there was not.

 

Nope. Quite a few people know there *was.* And it's part of the argument saying "it may not do what you want."

 

The name release script was run twice. The first time run affected characters 34 and under. The second time it was - as I recall level 5 or 6 and under, since that was where the majority of "freed" names were. It was a script that had to be run manually. It was not run after the second time because it didn't really have a very big impact at all. (There was no "rush" of suddenly freed names people wanted, in other words.)

 

Also, better to use either the legacy paragonwiki or the HC version, they're more up to date. There are a few others floating out there (wikia's the worst) that can be *really* wrong or out of date.

[Rathulfr]

1 hour ago, aethereal said:

I never looked into it during live, but this wiki page makes the claim that there was a name release system on live.

 

https://cityofheroes.fandom.com/wiki/Character_Name_Policy

 

It seems like a lot of people on this thread are assuming that there was not.

 

Please don't use fandom.com links: they rip-off content from legitimate sites just to generate ad revenue.  The correct URL reference (for the original retail game) is https://archive.paragonwiki.com/wiki/Character_Name_Policy

 

Here's an excerpt that's germaine to this thread.  This was the official policy from retail live.  I've taken the liberty of highlighting keywords and [inserting my own comments].

 

Overview

The character name policy is a tactic for recycling used player names from inactive accounts so that other players may use them. The policy only applies to accounts that are currently deactivated, not characters on active accounts that aren't logged in frequently. Additionally, accounts that are still being paid for, but simply have not been used for 90 days, are not affected.[*]

 

Long before City of Heroes Freedom launched, the development team decided that running the scripts wasn't freeing up an appreciable number of character names, and has not run the script since the second wave.

 

Policy Details

The policy change affects all accounts that have been inactive for over 90 days.[*] This only applied to accounts that were deactivated in some way, such as payment expiration or account suspensions.

Any character on such an account less than a certain level[**] has its name set to "unreserved" status, which allows any new character on the server to be created with that name. In the event this happens, the original character under the name will be prompted to choose a new name upon login. In order to return a character's name to "reserved" status, the user must log the character in question into the game. As such, it is possible that a player can be actively using an account with characters whose names are still set to "unreserved" status.

When "unreserved" status is assigned to a name, the following changes are applied to the affected character:

• A new character name needs to be chosen (if existing name has been taken)

• The character's description and battle cry is cleared[***]

• All mail received is deleted[***]

• The character is removed from their Super Group, if any[***]

• The character's Friends list is cleared, and the character is removed from others' Friends lists[***]

• Mail other characters have received from an affected character reverts to having been sent from "Unknown"[***]

 

[*:  I don't think 90 days is enough time for account inactivity: I propose 1 year.]

[**:  I propose less than level 50.  Any char at level 50 should keep its name permanently.]

[***:  I don't think these steps are necessary for Homecoming.]

 

The net result is this:

 

1. Logon to your account once a year and your names are always reserved, regardless of the last time you played any given character.
2. If you can't logon at least once a year, open a support ticket.
3. If you don't logon at least once a year, your character names are unreserved and fair game for other active players to use (if they ever try to create a char with those names).
4. Level 50 characters are exempt from all of the above.  Level 50 characters keep their names forever, regardless of whether or not your account is active/inactive.

 

That sounds reasonable enough to me.  Agree or not?  Flame on.

 

Edited December 12, 2020 by Rathulfr

[Parabola]

3 hours ago, Rathulfr said:

The net result is this:

 

1. Logon to your account once a year and your names are always reserved, regardless of the last time you played any given character.
2. If you can't logon at least once a year, open a support ticket.
3. If you don't logon at least once a year, your character names are unreserved and fair game for other active players to use (if they ever try to create a char with those names).
4. Level 50 characters are exempt from all of the above.  Level 50 characters keep their names forever, regardless of whether or not your account is active/inactive.

I could get behind this. I've no particular burning desire to see a name release policy in action, but if we have to have one (and I understand the argument for one), then having it tied to account activity seems the way to go to me.

[MTeague]

7 hours ago, Rathulfr said:

The net result is this:

1. Logon to your account once a year and your names are always reserved, regardless of the last time you played any given character.
2. If you can't logon at least once a year, open a support ticket.
3. If you don't logon at least once a year, your character names are unreserved and fair game for other active players to use (if they ever try to create a char with those names).
4. Level 50 characters are exempt from all of the above.  Level 50 characters keep their names forever, regardless of whether or not your account is active/inactive.

That sounds reasonable enough to me.  Agree or not?  Flame on.

I think this is quite reasonable. But I also think this would fail to make the issue go away. Because when people don't get the names they want, they'll automatically assume beyond anyone's power to convince them otherwise, that the name exists on a defunct account on a character who was powerlevelled to 50 in a single weekend, and still complain that it's "unjust for them to keep that name".

 

I'll happily be proven wrong.

But that's my honest prediction of the outcome. 

We'd still see threads about this every other week.

[BadMinotaur]

To be honest, if someone has a character at 50, that name should be locked down tight. Every other part of the policy I'm ambivalent on, but once you hit 50, you 100% deserve to keep your name, no matter what. Haven't played in a decade? I don't care, you keep it.

[Grouchybeast]

11 hours ago, Greycat said:

I mean, when they released information, they were talking 43 million characters made. 500,000 accounts at level 50. Granted, when the scripts were run, the numbers were a little smaller, but I *highly* doubt we have even half that many here. Even with being able to "make a ton of characters, and make as many accounts as we want."

Back when numbers were last released in March, there were only 1.2 million total characters on the servers, of which 330,000 had been played in the first couple of months of 2020. 

 

Incidentally, I added up the level 50 AT numbers and there were about 115,000 level 50s.  So less than 10% of the characters in existence in March would at that point be permanently immune to losing their names under the proposed policy.

[BadMinotaur]

You do have to consider though the knowledge of people returning to CoH. Having played City of Heroes before, players knew that names were at a premium, and would be looking to lock some down. Now granted, I try not to assume the worst of people and I generally think that most people who did make placeholder characters only locked down names of their old mains (this is what I did, I nabbed about 3 or 4 names I had on Live).

 

I guess what I'm getting at is, I don't think we should be comparing the name policy of Live with Homecoming -- Live had a slow trickle of players over many years, and Homecoming had a huge initial surge. And even if the player numbers are lower than Live's, the players coming in had a different mindset and different knowledge when they returned. Even if we still assume the best of incoming players, I feel like the situations are dissimilar enough that Homecoming should find its own solution, independent of the past. (though that's something I feel strongly about in general -- I don't think we all agreed with how things were handled on Live, and even if we have different ideas on how things should go moving forward, I don't believe "it worked on Live" should be the sole basis of keeping things the same)

[Yomo Kimyata]

I think that the procedure announced in May 2019 sounds fair, and I'd support it if/when it is implemented.

 

What makes anyone think the specific name that they want will be freed up in a purge, anyway?  As far as I know, the only info you have is that the name is already taken, not who owns it or how long it has been since they used it.  Am I mistaken?

[Coyotedancer]

No. You've got it.

 

I think that "OMG, YOU WON'T EVEREVEREVER GET THE NAME YOU SO OBVIOUSLY WANT TO TAKE ANYWAY!!"-thing is just an idea that the anti-release side of the argument has latched on to and keep repeating. Most of us do realize that there are no promises about what will get freed up and what won't.

[Ghost]

2 hours ago, BadMinotaur said:

To be honest, if someone has a character at 50, that name should be locked down tight. Every other part of the policy I'm ambivalent on, but once you hit 50, you 100% deserve to keep your name, no matter what. Haven't played in a decade? I don't care, you keep it.

Not sure I understand the reasoning behind this

In this game, it mean nothing to hit 50 in a day - so why treat it as some sort of accomplishment ?

 

And just for the record - have been playing since day one relaunch, have only one 50, and have never power leveled in my life 

Edited December 12, 2020 by Ghost

[Alchemystic]

I'm no good at formulas or databases but..

 

• Priority 1 should be account inactivity. If the account is not active for X amount of time, it will be automatically flagged.
• Priority 2 should be character level. Characters are more likely to be flagged if they are lower level. 
• Priority 3 should be character inactivity. The longer a character is inactive, the more likely it is to be flagged.
• Priority 4 should be character play time. This is a condition to ensure that characters that are created for the purpose of simply reserving names, even when farmed to 50, are more likely to be flagged.

 

Now finding out the numerical side of things is the tricky part, but I would certainly say these 5 conditions are what should formulate what flags a character's name to be opened.

 

When flagged, this does not automatically free up the name, but depending on the number of flags different things will happen;

 

• Low amount of flags: Your name is listed on a database for players to choose from, they must contact a GM to do so. They are limited in how many names they can request at a time. You can request your own name to be removed, but this will not reduce the amount of flags unless you remain active again.
• Medium amount of flags:  Same as above, but you cannot request your name to be removed from the database.
• High amount: You lose the name automatically, a player can choose it in game as they would any other.

 

Other notes:

 

• If a player changes any names via the character roster, they cannot do so again for 24 hours unless they contact a GM and explain why they need to change it again.
• Deleting a character that is flagged will lock that name from being accessed by the player, to avoid people 'resetting' them.
• Name requests will be archived, to track that people arent immediately trading them, especially with the person that lost it.
• You cannot request names if you are flagged by the system, unless they are your own.
• If you request a name, that name is more likely to be flagged, to avoid people from namesquatting it again.
• And of course... if you are caught trying to manipulate the system, you will be unable to make name requests in future.

 

Edited December 12, 2020 by Tyrannical

[Rathulfr]

4 hours ago, MTeague said:

We'd still see threads about this every other week.

 

If we had a consistent policy that was routinely enforced and announced (via patch notes, Discord, and e-mail notifications), I think these kinds of posts would disappear, because everyone's expectations would be managed.  No need to post about name release if everyone's knows it happens every year. Problem solved.

 

The problem with /ebfp and the announced (but never activated) name retention policy was that the HC said something, but never followed through. 

 

As a parent of 5 (now adult) children, one of the most painful lessons I learned is this: Never promise or threaten that you can't or won't deliver.  If you fail to deliver, kids learn you're unreliable and won't trust you, and they'll take advantage of that.  Or they'll throw tantrums and harbor resentment.

 

The recent changes to /ebfp blew up disastrously because the devs took too long to follow through on their posted threat, and everyone took that as tacit acceptance.  It became the new normal.  They could've avoided that entirely by turning off /ebfp immediately, deal with the short term fallout, and then come back later with the improved solution.  Everyone would've taken it better that way.

 

The same thing is true of the name retention policy announced last year, but never acted on.  It comes across as tacit tolerance and acceptance of name camping.  And it irks those of us who suspect/know that the majority of the initial surge from 2019 have gone away now that their curiosity has been addressed and their nostalgia sated. But all those names are still reserved by those who are long gone.  And that chafes enough people to post regular complaints about it.

 

[Rathulfr]

On 12/12/2020 at 10:49 AM, Yomo Kimyata said:

I think that the procedure announced in May 2019 sounds fair, and I'd support it if/when it is implemented.

 

What makes anyone think the specific name that they want will be freed up in a purge, anyway?  As far as I know, the only info you have is that the name is already taken, not who owns it or how long it has been since they used it.  Am I mistaken?

You're not mistaken.  Even if they turned on the name retention effective Jan. 1, 2021, there's no guarantee that the desired names will be available.

 

However, this isn't just about the names.  It's about managing expectations and addressing a perceived problem.  The perceived problem is this: "I can't get the name I want because it's reserved. I've tried contacting/emailing the @global and never get any response. Therefore, the name is reserved by someone who doesn't even play any more. Why should they get to keep the name forever, if they're not even playing the game?  I'm going to complain about this on the forums."

 

By actively enforcing the policy, the perceived problem changes to: "I can't get the name I want now because it's reserved.  At least I know I can try again in X days/months because it won't be reserved forever (unless it's a 50, which makes sense, because I wouldn't want my 50 name taken away, either)."

 

The expectation shifts from "hopeless" to "hopeful".  The focus shifts from "the HC devs don't deliver" to "the HC devs are addressing my concerns".  Even though the actual outcome doesn't change (I might never get the name I want), there's a chance I might.

 

 

Edited December 14, 2020 by Rathulfr

[Yomo Kimyata]

Hmm, I hear you, but what makes you think that if you sent someone an email and they didn't reply then it means that it's an out-of-use account?  If someone sent me a message, I might reply or I might ignore it depending on my mood at the time.  Most of the time I would view that inquiry like a bot calling me on my cell phone to ask me about my vehicle's extended warranty...

[Rathulfr]

12 minutes ago, Yomo Kimyata said:

Hmm, I hear you, but what makes you think that if you sent someone an email and they didn't reply then it means that it's an out-of-use account?  If someone sent me a message, I might reply or I might ignore it depending on my mood at the time.  Most of the time I would view that inquiry like a bot calling me on my cell phone to ask me about my vehicle's extended warranty...

If you got one message about it, I'd expect you might blow it off.  But if you got repeated messages from the same person on the same topic over an extended period of time, wouldn't you reply if you were even casually active?  Wouldn't you at least reply: "stop bugging me"?

 

Over the past year, I've repeatedly tried contacting several @globals for a handful of names, and have NEVER gotten ANY response.  This tells me I'm either /gignored or the players are long gone.

 

Edited December 12, 2020 by Rathulfr