Time to enforce the name holding expiration rules

[Alchemystic]

Just now, Wavicle said:

It’s an important distinction in this case. If it was a problem it would need to be addressed promptly.

It's been addressed, just not implemented.

[Snowdaze]

11 minutes ago, AerialAssault said:

To be honest, the proposed name purge I think is fine .. though I have reservations about Level 50 Immunity.

 

It would be naïve to assume that nobody has farmed characters up to Level 50 to avoid the proposed name purge in advance. The issue is that any dedicated name squatter will circumvent any measures short of a complete reset of the character database. I think that those fringe cases should be dealt by and reasoned with the GM Team. 

I also agree. The game is is in a free state, if you arent paying rent no reason you cant be evicted especially if you arent actually living here!

Immune 50's for no other reason then they are 50 I feel is a HUGE loophole and just encourages people to skip the process of playing their character.

[Wavicle]

Just now, Tyrannical said:

It's been addressed, just not implemented.

Now who’s arguing semantics? 😉

[Alchemystic]

1 minute ago, Wavicle said:

Now who’s arguing semantics? 😉

it's an important distinction 😏

[Snowdaze]

1 minute ago, Wavicle said:

It’s an important distinction in this case. If it was a problem it would need to be addressed promptly.

It was originally mentioned a year and a half ago, I feel the situation has escalated name wise at this point and the player base has significantly stabilized enough, that considering addressing this issue on a current time table is prudent.

[Player2]

Regarding the idea that "good" names are being squatted on, I was inspired earlier to create a new energy / radiation sentinel and I snagged the name Unlawful on Torchbearer.

 

I don't know what constitutes "good" for everyone, but it's a single word that doesn't use numbers to letters, symbols, or intentional misspelling to achieve the intent... a walking villainous power plant with intent to break some laws.

 

 

Edited December 14, 2020 by Player2
Just sayin... there are good names still available.

[ZacKing]

1 hour ago, AerialAssault said:

To be honest, the proposed name purge I think is fine .. though I have reservations about Level 50 Immunity.

 

It would be naïve to assume that nobody has farmed characters up to Level 50 to avoid the proposed name purge in advance. The issue is that any dedicated name squatter will circumvent any measures short of a complete reset of the character database. I think that those fringe cases should be dealt by and reasoned with the GM Team. 

they can tell whether a character was PL'ed in AE just like they did on live to discourage farming.  No reason to include 50s in the "free for all" list that have been played a lot that have all kinds of badges and stuff. 

[Snowdaze]

11 minutes ago, ZacKing said:

they can tell whether a character was PL'ed in AE just like they did on live to discourage farming.  No reason to include 50s in the "free for all" list that have been played a lot that have all kinds of badges and stuff. 

Sooo....if you want Permanence for a name... Earn the "Until the End of the World" badge?
I think by that time you would have earned it! Although that's an awful high bar...

Edited December 14, 2020 by Snowdaze

[ZacKing]

1 hour ago, Snowdaze said:

Most importantly right now is the most important time to make productive discussion about this topic... BEFORE one is implemented. Fighting one altogether is only going to hurt the life of the HC servers, yes the HC servers are the most healthy of all the CoH servers but we need to look at the future so we can keep playing for years to come. And if we run out of names then we are al going just be numbers...

There's over 170,000 words in the Oxford dictionary that can be combined into countless combinations.  the game isn't going to be around long enough for you to run out of names.  the existing policy is fine so long as it goes by account inactivity, not character inactivity.  again, if an account is active, someone wanting a name can get in touch with the owner to negotiate a release. 

[aethereal]

25 minutes ago, Player2 said:

Regarding the idea that "good" names are being squatted on, I was inspired earlier to create a new energy / radiation sentinel and I snagged the name Unlawful on Torchbearer.

 

I don't know what constitutes "good" for everyone, but it's a single word that doesn't use numbers to letters, symbols, or intentional misspelling to achieve the intent... a walking villainous power plant with intent to break some laws.

 

So I think this is important and while probably most people have the general idea in their heads already, we should maybe make it explicit.

 

Let's categorize names into three buckets, with the acknowledgement that this is a simplification and tastes will vary.

 

Good names are pithy, well-themed, do not substitute letters for numbers or l's for I's unless that's part of the theme, and generall "cool."

Okay names are a little long-winded or esoteric (not in a well-themed way), obviously a bit of a stand-in for a simpler name, or smack of trying too hard, or use various hacks to try to duplicate good names

Bad names are just stupid, not well themed, incomprehensible, or just straight up dumb like CoolGuy4723

 

So insight one:  There are many fewer good names than okay names -- for example, a small minority of English words are well-themed to superhero stuff, while a much larger number of English words are sort of "meh, fine."  Hacker symbols allow a single good name to be duplicated into several different okay names, etc.  So there are probably something like 10x-100x as many okay names as good names.  And there are effectively infinite numbers of Bad names -- you can generate billions of versions easily.

 

As the Good names pool gets more taken, more and more players will switch to okay names -- before the good names pool is entirely mined out!  For example, Unlawful (which I would agree is a good name) won't be taken by some players whose characters aren't, you know, unlawful, or who want ice-themed names or whatever.  And of course even someone who might be perfectly fine with the name Unlawful simply won't think of it.  In general, when a pool is relatively filled, it will be slower and slower for people to stumble upon the last few names in it.  Similarly, though much more slowly, people will get shunted from okay names to bad names before the pool is mined out.

 

One upshot of this is that the comparison between HC and Live in terms of good names may be much less lopsided than you might imagine, even if live had 20x or 30x as many characters made as HC.  For example, you might've found that on live 98% of the pool of good names was mined out (or 99%, or 99.9%), while on HC 95% of it is mined out.  Where you see the difference might be much more in okay names, where in live it might've been 80% mined out and in HC it's only 10% mined out (because it's much much larger than the good name spool).  WoW, I'm given to understand, basically only has bad names left, I don't think that HC is realistically ever in much danger of coming close to mining out okay names.

Edited December 14, 2020 by aethereal

[Snowdaze]

4 minutes ago, ZacKing said:

There's over 170,000 words in the Oxford dictionary that can be combined into countless combinations.  the game isn't going to be around long enough for you to run out of names.  the existing policy is fine so long as it goes by account inactivity, not character inactivity.  again, if an account is active, someone wanting a name can get in touch with the owner to negotiate a release. 

I dont really want to have to name a character "Yarborough Winklepicker" before they start using a name release policy. But I agree with the overall feeling of your post, with the exception of simply saying 50's are "safe".

[Greycat]

57 minutes ago, aethereal said:

 

Good names are pithy, well-themed, do not substitute letters for numbers or l's for I's unless that's part of the theme, and generall "cool."

Okay names are a little long-winded or esoteric (not in a well-themed way), obviously a bit of a stand-in for a simpler name, or smack of trying too hard, or use various hacks to try to duplicate good names

Bad names are just stupid, not well themed, incomprehensible, or just straight up dumb like CoolGuy4723

 

Though, any of these ratings (yes, even "just straight up dumb," as someone might have reason to really love a name like CoolGuy4723) are 100% *personal opinion and/or taste.*  I cringe at seeing xXxSome NamexXx - but it might be a theme someone else has carried over from games since they could first name a character and it's their "thing."  Does that make it good, ok, or bad - or none of my damn business to rate?

 

Personally, I'm going for the last one.

[Doomguide2005]

5 hours ago, Grouchybeast said:

This comment just made me realize that, hypothetically, someone could write and publish a story about a character who has the name they want, and then alert HC to the copyright violation.

Me memories are a bit old and foggy but ... 

 

Not an attorney and I'm definitely not a patent and trademark attorney but ...

 

If I'm not misremembering if you named your character the same as your character on Live you are potentially in copyright violation.  NCSoft actually owns (owned) the rights to any and all characters created in City of Heroes per their EULA.  If I'm not mistaken at least one famous published author named one of his characters after his literary character and had some legal issues as a result.

[aethereal]

22 minutes ago, Greycat said:

Though, any of these ratings (yes, even "just straight up dumb," as someone might have reason to really love a name like CoolGuy4723) are 100% *personal opinion and/or taste.*  I cringe at seeing xXxSome NamexXx - but it might be a theme someone else has carried over from games since they could first name a character and it's their "thing."  Does that make it good, ok, or bad - or none of my damn business to rate?

 

Personally, I'm going for the last one.

Nobody's asking you to rate someone's name.  But if anyone suggests that the overwhelming majority of CoH players would be just as happy with HawtIce7631 as they are with Hot Ice (or whatever), that person is flat out lying.

[Doomguide2005]

3 minutes ago, aethereal said:

Nobody's asking you to rate someone's name.  But if anyone suggests that the overwhelming majority of CoH players would be just as happy with HawtIce7631 as they are with Hot Ice (or whatever), that person is flat out lying.

Awww, come on Hawtniss Emberdude just does it for me and my Archery/Fire character.

[Rathulfr]

1 hour ago, aethereal said:

Let's categorize names into three buckets, with the acknowledgement that this is a simplification and tastes will vary.

 

I don't think we even need to go that far.  It doesn't even matter if the names are cool or good or stupid or awful.  It simply boils down to this: if someone is no longer playing the game, and they haven't logged on for over a year (or more), why do they get to keep their names forever?  Permanently reserved names on inactive accounts penalizes players on active accounts.

 

[Rathulfr]

18 hours ago, Doomguide2005 said:

Me memories are a bit old and foggy but ... 

 

Not an attorney and I'm definitely not a patent and trademark attorney but ...

 

If I'm not misremembering if you named your character the same as your character on Live you are potentially in copyright violation.  NCSoft actually owns (owned) the rights to any and all characters created in City of Heroes per their EULA.  If I'm not mistaken at least one famous published author named one of his characters after his literary character and had some legal issues as a result.

 

Jim Butcher, CoH player and author of the wildly successful Dresden Files book/TV series, had to fight with the retail team to keep the names of his own CoH player characters that happened to be named after his own copyrighted literary characters. 

 

To quote the Canadian sage, "Isn't that ironic?"

 

Edited December 15, 2020 by Rathulfr
Added URL to shamelessly plug one of my favorite book series.

[aethereal]

3 minutes ago, Rathulfr said:

I don't think we even need to go that far.  It doesn't even matter if the names are cool or good or stupid or awful.  It simply boils down to this: if someone is no longer playing the game, and they haven't logged on for over a year (or more), why do they get to keep their names forever?  Permanently reserved names on inactive accounts penalizes players on active accounts.

You really need to let go of your assumption that everyone is commenting on the fairness of taking names from people.  I'm not (and I wasn't the last time you replied to me, either).  And repeating your point for the fiftieth time on this thread probably isn't changing a lot of people's minds.  (For whatever it's worth (nothing), I'm fine with essentially any of the definitions of inactivity proposed in this thread and also agree that taking names from people who are inactive is fine).

[Rathulfr]

Just now, aethereal said:

You really need to let go of your assumption that everyone is commenting on the fairness of taking names from people.  I'm not (and I wasn't the last time you replied to me, either).  And repeating your point for the fiftieth time on this thread probably isn't changing a lot of people's minds.  (For whatever it's worth (nothing), I'm fine with essentially any of the definitions of inactivity proposed in this thread and also agree that taking names from people who are inactive is fine).

 

I was merely pointing out that we don't need complex categorizations or formulae to address a simple problem.  Define what criteria determines "idle" versus "active", announce it, set a deadline, give folks a chance to respond, and then act on it periodically.  That's all.

 

[aethereal]

Just now, Rathulfr said:

 

I was merely pointing out that we don't need complex categorizations or formulae to address a simple problem.  Define what criteria determines "idle" versus "active", announce it, set a deadline, give folks a chance to respond, and then act on it periodically.  That's all.

Good thing I didn't suggest complex categorizations or formula to address a problem!  I suggested that categorizing the names in this way would help people understand a few things:

1.  Why you might find that the name stuff is relevant to HC even if HC has 1/20th the population of live.
2.  Why finding an example or two of "good" names does not mean that "good" names are not mostly mined out.

 

Everyone who cares has read your proposal, dude.  If there are people who are persuadable but not yet persuaded, repeating it ten more times is not going to persuade them.  But helping them conceptualize what's going on with names, you know, might.

[MTeague]

56 minutes ago, Greycat said:

Though, any of these ratings (yes, even "just straight up dumb," as someone might have reason to really love a name like CoolGuy4723) are 100% *personal opinion and/or taste.*  I cringe at seeing xXxSome NamexXx - but it might be a theme someone else has carried over from games since they could first name a character and it's their "thing."  Does that make it good, ok, or bad - or none of my damn business to rate?

 

Personally, I'm going for the last one.

You have absolute freedom to rate the name as Crap-tastic, as long as you remember it's only your own personal rating. 

 

Would I get the in the person's face about it and tell them "Your name IS BAD and should FEEL BAD!"? 

No. Well, not unless it's someone I know in real life.  And there's like, two CoH players I can say that about. 

One of whom is my RL brother. I'm allowed to give him grief. Hell, brothers are practically REQUIRED to give each other a little bit of grief 🙂

 

But for everyone else, no.  II have no idea if the player is a kid or not. I have no idea if the player gives two bleeps about theme, or just typed in something becuase they wanted to get in and play the game NOW.  Maybe they simply don't care, and maybe then just needed to blow off steam and punch baddies, and plan to deal with the rename screen to struggle for a better name later in the week.  None-a-my-business.

 

But I do reserve the right to judge names, and facepalm at the screen, even if I do so in silence.  🙂 

[Rathulfr]

31 minutes ago, aethereal said:

Good thing I didn't suggest complex categorizations or formula to address a problem!  I suggested that categorizing the names in this way would help people understand a few things:

1.  Why you might find that the name stuff is relevant to HC even if HC has 1/20th the population of live.
2.  Why finding an example or two of "good" names does not mean that "good" names are not mostly mined out.

 

Everyone who cares has read your proposal, dude.  If there are people who are persuadable but not yet persuaded, repeating it ten more times is not going to persuade them.  But helping them conceptualize what's going on with names, you know, might.

 

HC currently has 1/20th the population of retail.  However, HC originally started with 1, then 2, then 5 servers, compared to the dozen servers of retail.  Additionally, there was an initial surge during those first 3 months: at points HC was pushing around 10-15K concurrent players online at any given time.  There was suddenly 100K new accounts on HC in under 60 days, while retail peaked at around 150-200K active subscribers shortly after CoV launch after a year and half.  Finally, retail limited player accounts to 10-12 characters per shard, while HC allows 1,000 per shard. 

 

So comparing HC conditions to retail isn't so clearly cut.  HC players can create (and camp) many more names than they were able to on retail, even if the HC population is considerably smaller than retail.  So fewer accounts doesn't necessarily translate to fewer characters/names.

 

Additionally (sorry to repeat myself): most that initial surge of accounts are gone now.  Those players came and went.  They got their nostalgia fix and moved on to something else.  But their residue remains: all the names they reserved are still reserved.  And they will continue to be unless/until HC enforces some kind of name policy.

 

I apologize if my response to your comments about cool/good/bad names came across as invalidating.  That was not my intention.  I wasn't trying to dismiss your comments.  I was overzealous to reinforce my own preferences, which you've pointed out I've done enthusiastically and redundantly.

 

(edit: Anyone know where I can go to get a life?  I suspect I play these forums more than I play the actual game.)

 

Edited December 15, 2020 by Rathulfr

[Doomguide2005]

38 minutes ago, Rathulfr said:

 

Jim Butcher, CoH player and author of the wildly successful Dresden Files book/TV series, had to fight with the retail team to keep the names of his own CoH player characters that happened to be named after his own copyrighted literary characters. 

 

To quote the Canadian sage, "Isn't that ironic?"

 

Yes, that was the author I had buried in my foggy old brain.

[MTeague]

It's kind of a pity HC isn't allowed to have subscription fees. 

One thing about the old subscription model.  When people were DONE, they'd tell NCSoft to halt billing and forget their credit card number.

THAT, is a pretty straightforward definition of an inactive account. 

 

Since we do not / cannot have that here, then I'm fine with "haven't logged in X days", though I do feel it should be by Account, not by Character.

50's....eh.  I admit some of that because I deliberately level slowly and immediately disable XP on joining a team. It'll be a long time before I have many 50's.

If any exemptions were to be added, I'd much rather see it in terms of "hours played" rather than "XP earned".

 

[Oubliette_Red]

6 hours ago, aethereal said:

 

So I think this is important and while probably most people have the general idea in their heads already, we should maybe make it explicit.

 

Let's categorize names into three buckets, with the acknowledgement that this is a simplification and tastes will vary.

 

Good names are pithy, well-themed, do not substitute letters for numbers or l's for I's unless that's part of the theme, and generall "cool."

Okay names are a little long-winded or esoteric (not in a well-themed way), obviously a bit of a stand-in for a simpler name, or smack of trying too hard, or use various hacks to try to duplicate good names

Bad names are just stupid, not well themed, incomprehensible, or just straight up dumb like CoolGuy4723

 

So insight one:  There are many fewer good names than okay names -- for example, a small minority of English words are well-themed to superhero stuff, while a much larger number of English words are sort of "meh, fine."  Hacker symbols allow a single good name to be duplicated into several different okay names, etc.  So there are probably something like 10x-100x as many okay names as good names.  And there are effectively infinite numbers of Bad names -- you can generate billions of versions easily.

 

As the Good names pool gets more taken, more and more players will switch to okay names -- before the good names pool is entirely mined out!  For example, Unlawful (which I would agree is a good name) won't be taken by some players whose characters aren't, you know, unlawful, or who want ice-themed names or whatever.  And of course even someone who might be perfectly fine with the name Unlawful simply won't think of it.  In general, when a pool is relatively filled, it will be slower and slower for people to stumble upon the last few names in it.  Similarly, though much more slowly, people will get shunted from okay names to bad names before the pool is mined out.

 

One upshot of this is that the comparison between HC and Live in terms of good names may be much less lopsided than you might imagine, even if live had 20x or 30x as many characters made as HC.  For example, you might've found that on live 98% of the pool of good names was mined out (or 99%, or 99.9%), while on HC 95% of it is mined out.  Where you see the difference might be much more in okay names, where in live it might've been 80% mined out and in HC it's only 10% mined out (because it's much much larger than the good name spool).  WoW, I'm given to understand, basically only has bad names left, I don't think that HC is realistically ever in much danger of coming close to mining out okay names.

 

Good names are subjective.