Time to enforce the name holding expiration rules

[ZacKing]

54 minutes ago, Tyrannical said:

It's a formula intended to target serial name squatters or abandoned accounts.

Name one "serial squatter" account. 

[Alchemystic]

1 minute ago, Excraft said:

Answer is still no.  50s should never be flagged unless the account owner asks for their account info to be deleted.  You can't know one way or another for sure if someone is away permanently or is just taking a break.  Not everyone's life revolves around this game to the point where they have to be logging in every day to prevent someone else from stealing a name.  If you didn't get the name you wanted, do what everyone else does and use another name or do without.  "Serial name squatters" are a myth like Bigfoot.  There's far more combinations of words in the English language to use than names that would get freed up.

 

it's already been addressed that mass name squatting is a thing. People who heard the game was making a return rushed to swindle as many names as they could when the server sprung up, that's fact.

 

 

 

[Alchemystic]

14 minutes ago, ZacKing said:

Name one "serial squatter" account. 

 

For real? How would I be able to? I'm not a GM, I cant peek at other people's account information.

 

the only way I could would be with the old Info Tracker that isn't even on Homecoming...

 

but THAT is a topic worth discussing elsewhere.

 

 

Edited December 14, 2020 by Tyrannical

[Excraft]

10 minutes ago, Tyrannical said:

it's already been addressed that mass name squatting is a thing. People who heard the game was making a return rushed to swindle as many names as they could when the server sprung up, that's fact.

Believe it when I see it.  Was every single word combination in the English language taken?  I don't think so.

[Snowdaze]

32 minutes ago, Excraft said:

Answer is still no.  50s should never be flagged unless the account owner asks for their account info to be deleted.  You can't know one way or another for sure if someone is away permanently or is just taking a break.  Not everyone's life revolves around this game to the point where they have to be logging in every day to prevent someone else from stealing a name.  If you didn't get the name you wanted, do what everyone else does and use another name or do without.  "Serial name squatters" are a myth like Bigfoot.  There's far more combinations of words in the English language to use than names that would get freed up.

you just don't want to put in the effort to have to log into your characters at least once a year... sounds like you might be a "serial name squatter"!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[GM Tock]

We're straying from the topic here.  Please be civil and discuss the name policy, not which person in the conversation belongs in which pigeonhole.

 

Thanks for listening.

[Snowdaze]

5 minutes ago, GM Tahquitz said:

We're straying from the topic here.  Please be civil and discuss the name policy, not which person in the conversation belongs in which pigeonhole.

 

Thanks for listening.

Sorry Tahquitz....
@Excraft, Issue is still issue. there are abandoned accounts with good names that people want. This is ultimately most unfair to those who are active and playing the game. This isn't about taking names from active players. But making a reasonable request of the actually active player base to "logon your characters" once and a while is not such an imposition as many are making it seem. As much as people want to "own" a name, unless you have taken out a copyright on it, you don't, and it is within reason for the HC staff to "clean house" once and a while. They don't require you to pay them for the service of the game, but making a small request of showing your support by actually being active is a reasonable request.

[Excraft]

19 minutes ago, Snowdaze said:

Sorry Tahquitz....
@Excraft, Issue is still issue. there are abandoned accounts with good names that people want. This is ultimately most unfair to those who are active and playing the game. This isn't about taking names from active players. But making a reasonable request of the actually active player base to "logon your characters" once and a while is not such an imposition as many are making it seem. As much as people want to "own" a name, unless you have taken out a copyright on it, you don't, and it is within reason for the HC staff to "clean house" once and a while. They don't require you to pay them for the service of the game, but making a small request of showing your support by actually being active is a reasonable request.

Define "abandoned".  That's going to vary from one person to the next.  I've no issue with pre-50 names getting released on accounts that haven't been logged into for a year or more.  50s should never be on the table in my opinion.  Seems to me most people here are forgetting this was done on the live servers and hardly any names got released. 

Edited December 14, 2020 by Excraft

[Six-Six]

You can have my toon's name... over my dead body.

What if:
Person A seeks to name his/her character "Toony McToon-Toon." However, the name is not available. Every attempt to use an existing player name 1) notifies the person attempting to use the name of the current holder of the name 2) notifies the current holder of the name that an attempt to use one of his existing toon's names 3) offers both of them the chance to "duke it out" by virtue of concept and theme, costume, playing ability. Person A can choose to fight for his right or not. If not, then life goes on, he picks a diff name that's hopefully available. If he chooses to fight for it, then the current holder has the prerogative to set the time and date of the showdown (in the Beta Test Server, I suppose). The loser is then deemed simply not deserving of the name.

... of course, the current holder can set the date to the year 2351, so yeah. 😃

[Snowdaze]

4 minutes ago, Excraft said:

Define "abandoned".  That's going to vary from one person to the next.  I've no issue with pre-50 names getting released on accounts that haven't been logged into for a year or more.  50s should never be on the table in my opinion.  Seems to me most people here are forgetting this was done on the live servers and hardly any names got released. 

It's not hard to log onto your 50's once a year... really it not. And I say this purely because there is WAY more powerleveling in HC then there was on live. And I'm willing to bet there are plenty of accounts that have not been logged into in over a year because the player just powerleveled their characters and realized they weren't having fun like they used to back in the day. Probably because they didn't actually play the character this time around, they went on a nostalgia hunt and found that the instant gratification mindset failed to be fullfilling. Now they moved on to other games, and whatever names they had taken will never be seen again.

Now if you want to say any character with a 1000 hours (example) of play regardless of level is immune to a name freeing script I'll support you to the end of time. Clvl means nothing, too many characters are powerleveled and left on the shelf to collect dust, and there should be no reward for that. Activity should be rewarded, that is what will keep the game and community alive.

[UltraAlt]

It would free up far less names, but it would be a much more fair way to go about it to target unused accounts versus characters rarely played.

 

Anyone that really wants to keep names is simply going to log in rotation to beat whatever mechanic is added.

 

Imposing this kind of mechanic simply punishes those that don't know about it.

[Alchemystic]

@Snowdazeexactly my thinking, it's why I made character playtime a consideration in my formula, because it's not hard to farm a character to 50 and then never use them again.

 

Edited December 14, 2020 by Tyrannical

[Snowdaze]

4 minutes ago, UltraAlt said:

It would free up far less names, but it would be a much more fair way to go about it to target unused accounts versus characters rarely played.

 

Anyone that really wants to keep names is simply going to log in rotation to beat whatever mechanic is added.

 

Imposing this kind of mechanic simply punishes those that don't know about it.

There is no mechanic! Why are people thinking this will be a constant effect! The they are not going to program in a new function into the game server to do this. It will always be a script that is manually ran, to "clean" the name server. It will be run against the character database, when the map servers are down. ALSO it does not genericize anyone, it simply makes inactive characters names available, if the player returns and no one else claimed the name they then reclaim their name rights, if they return and someone else claimed it the game asks the player to rename their character. That is how the script works and the game reacts to it.

On top of all this, if the script is planed to be run, the HC devs will announce in advance it will be run, and you will have time to make your characters compliant!

Why is there so much resistance against wanting people to just logon their characters?

[Alchemystic]

9 minutes ago, Snowdaze said:

There is no mechanic! Why are people thinking this will be a constant effect! The they are not going to program in a new function into the game server to do this. It will always be a script that is manually ran, to "clean" the name server. It will be run against the character database, when the map servers are down. ALSO it does not genericize anyone, it simply makes inactive characters names available, if the player returns and no one else claimed the name they then reclaim their name rights, if they return and someone else claimed it the game asks the player to rename their character. That is how the script works and the game reacts to it.

On top of all this, if the script is planed to be run, the HC devs will announce in advance it will be run, and you will have time to make your characters compliant!

Why is there so much resistance against wanting people to just logon their characters?

 

Honestly I hadn't considered the script being run manually but you raise a good point, at least that way people are made aware of it in advance.

 

And if people still have an issue with it after that, then they're either lazy, greedy or spiteful.

[Doc_Scorpion]

15 minutes ago, Snowdaze said:

Why is there so much resistance against wanting people to just logon their characters?

Because an active player should not be burdened or punished for have inactive characters.  This goes beyond "freeing up names from players that have left, almost certainly never to return" and into the realm of "force everyone to justify their worthiness to a name" (with more than a whiff of "eff the powerlevelers").  It's gone from "freeing up names" and started into "taking vengeance" territory.

That is unacceptable.

[Alchemystic]

13 minutes ago, Doc_Scorpion said:

Because an active player should not be burdened or punished for have inactive characters.  This goes beyond "freeing up names from players that have left, almost certainly never to return" and into the realm of "force everyone to justify their worthiness to a name" (with more than a whiff of "eff the powerlevelers").  It's gone from "freeing up names" and started into "taking vengeance" territory.

That is unacceptable.

Realistically, an active player should be at no risk, even if their characters are inactive, so long as those characters have actually been played and not just sat there for the name alone.

[Greycat]

2 minutes ago, Tyrannical said:

Realistically, an active player should be at no risk, even if their characters are inactive, so long as those characters have actually been played and not just sat there for the name alone.

An active player should be at no risk, period.

 

I've got a lot of characters. Some I play more than others (that poor, neglected Praetorian.) Sometimes I think I've played one more recently than I have. Some I have on characters that, if there were a "person" AT with nothing but travel powers, I'd make them one of those - they're 100% RP drop in / advisor types (on which, yes, the name *is* important*.)  I already have one job which pays. I don't particularly want to turn part of a game (one which encourages alts, especially) into another one just to "prove" I'm not "sat there for the name alone."

 

*Granted, I *highly* doubt anyone would be interested in the names. But it's the principle, and it's also not unlikely someone *could* come up with the names on their own, too.

[Alchemystic]

1 minute ago, Greycat said:

An active player should be at no risk, period.

 

I've got a lot of characters. Some I play more than others (that poor, neglected Praetorian.) Sometimes I think I've played one more recently than I have. Some I have on characters that, if there were a "person" AT with nothing but travel powers, I'd make them one of those - they're 100% RP drop in / advisor types (on which, yes, the name *is* important*.)  I already have one job which pays. I don't particularly want to turn part of a game (one which encourages alts, especially) into another one just to "prove" I'm not "sat there for the name alone."

 

*Granted, I *highly* doubt anyone would be interested in the names. But it's the principle, and it's also not unlikely someone *could* come up with the names on their own, too.

 

The only thing that would be at risk for active accounts would be low level characters with virtually no playtime and extended inactivity.

 

I cant stress enough that this sorta thing should be indiscriminate, whether the player is active or not, an unplayed level 1 character is the same either way.

[Snowdaze]

37 minutes ago, Doc_Scorpion said:

Because an active player should not be burdened or punished for have inactive characters.  This goes beyond "freeing up names from players that have left, almost certainly never to return" and into the realm of "force everyone to justify their worthiness to a name" (with more than a whiff of "eff the powerlevelers").  It's gone from "freeing up names" and started into "taking vengeance" territory.

That is unacceptable.

That's why I'm not pushing any of the more "elegant" solutions that take into character playtime. Even though it's the only metric that should justify name permanence.

But in all honesty the simplest and fairest solution is as follows:
Put in the EULA that on whatever date every year, the script will be run with the following ruleset:
[At the execution of the name cleaning script, any character that has not been logged on to in over 460 days on any account that has not been logged on to for 365 days, will have it's name set to an unreserved status.]

Provide notifications and reminders leading up to annual cleaning day through forums, and discord, maybe email...

 

With this ruleset, you would have to be away from the game for a whole year and even if so there is a basic extra 3 month buffer on the characters. If you can not login to your account at some point every year, the game is probably not important to you. And especially if you hadn't played a character for 3 months prior to you not logging in for a year, then that character was probably less important to you. With this ruleset it would take 2 years of the script running annually to free up all characters names on an inactive account. And if you want to try and tell me that an account that hasnt logged on in 2 years shouldn't be considered inactive, I feel you are probably here just to troll those of us who actually care about this problem.

And if you are here because you are afraid of loosing your character names... play the game and you wont have any problems. I'm sure if the GM's decide to adopt a name cleaning policy they will very likely adopt an extremely conservative stance to make sure no active player is affected in any way! But this is as it stands a free game right now and anyone can make countless accounts, and many of those accounts will play for a short period and then move on with their lives, and that uses a technically finite resource [names]. 

Edited December 14, 2020 by Snowdaze

[Alchemystic]

Honestly, if you think my name clearing policy is harsh you should seen the old one that literally just took into account character level and when it was last logged in 😅

[AerialAssault]

I said before in the last thread like this, all of this is a good argument for the City Info Tracker for Homecoming.

[UltraAlt]

1 hour ago, Snowdaze said:

Imposing this kind of mechanic simply punishes those that don't know about it. 

The above was quoting me in your post and it is the answer to your question.

Edited December 14, 2020 by UltraAlt

[Doc_Scorpion]

16 minutes ago, Tyrannical said:

Realistically, an active player should be at no risk, even if their characters are inactive, so long as those characters have actually been played

Which translates to "an active character should be at no risk"...  A player cannot be free of risk unless all of their characters are free of risk.
 

 

23 minutes ago, Tyrannical said:

not just sat there for the name alone

And that's the crux of my disagreement with the proposal - the presumption of guilt.  The requirement that I (as an active player) must prove my innocence to maintain the privilege of being allowed to keep my characters.

No.  An active player should never be at risk of losing a name because others deem him unworthy of having it.

[Snowdaze]

4 minutes ago, UltraAlt said:

 

No no no, don't do that! You are quoting you! I never said that.

Also if you didn't read the EULA, or make yourself open to notifications on discord or read the forums that's on the player.
if you dont log in to the game at least once a year you should be fair game!

Edited December 14, 2020 by Snowdaze

[Alchemystic]

3 minutes ago, UltraAlt said:

The above was quoting me in your post and it is the answer to your question.

Yes because the HC devs are going to implement this secretly and tell nobody about it.

 

Look at your character roster, they're all generic'd already.