Clearing locked character names

[Galaxy Brain]

Personally, I feel like if the stated policy were inacted for folks who have not been logged in for quite some time, it would be fair. 

 

The caveat of course that this hits accounts that have not logged in at all within a long period of time. This means they did not open the launcher, launch the game, and log into the server select screen in YEARS. 

 

Being realistic, yes there are likely exceptions but I would put money on it being a rarity compared to the vast amount of people who might fall under the umbrella of "tried it and never coming back".

 

Looking at the data our lovely GM quoted earlier, there were 64,519 accounts made in the first month or so of HC going live in 2019. The character count per account averages to about 6 (going off this as a safe-ish bet), if only 5% of those accounts have been inactive sine that data was pulled and we thanos snapped the locks on their names, that would free up (with napkin math) nearly 20,000 names. If we look at the amount of accounts that are in that 5%, that is 3225 people. I highly doubt that even an 8th of those would fall into an exception clause outside of "they just left the game".

 

Mathematically, not a lot of folks would actually lose names either as it would be an odds game that you would pick 1/20,000 that have been released,  which is also why as dubious as it seems (and I am highly sus myself), the claim from the OG devs may be interpreted as the names being available yet not taken as much as they thought. Id love to see harder data on that.

 

From my perspective, I think a year or multi year limit before "unlocks" start to happen per the policy isn't an issue of "stealing" names so much as recycling unused assets. Names are ultimately a commodity that we technically have a limit on per server, there can't truly be infinite like even with purple IOs / etc that you can always get in game. If it was enacted just on accounts that have been gone for a significant amount of time, the odds are that both that person isn't coming back as well as their names would likely be safe if they were to return due to odds.

Edited August 28, 2021 by Galaxy Brain
Typo

[Snarky]

Damn, well said.  You make good word speak Galaxy Brain

[Ironblade]

2 hours ago, Galaxy Brain said:

Looking at the data our lovely GM quoted earlier, there were 64,519 accounts made in the first month or so of HC going live in 2019. The character count per account averages to about 6 (going off this as a safe-ish bet), if only 5% of those accounts have been inactive sine that data was pulled and we thanos snapped the locks on their names, that would free up (with napkin math) nearly 20,000 names.

Sure, but how many of those are something like 'Dark Lord Darkness'?  (FYI, I actually had a character with that name.)

[Galaxy Brain]

38 minutes ago, Ironblade said:

Sure, but how many of those are something like 'Dark Lord Darkness'?  (FYI, I actually had a character with that name.)

It doesn't matter tbh, its a matter of "is this asset in use?" If no, it should be reasonable to be unlocked for use.

[arcane]

4 hours ago, Galaxy Brain said:

From my perspective, I think a year or multi year limit before "unlocks" start to happen per the policy isn't an issue of "stealing" names so much as recycling unused assets. Names are ultimately a commodity that we technically have a limit on per server, there can't truly be infinite like even with purple IOs / etc that you can always get in game. If it was enacted just on accounts that have been gone for a significant amount of time, the odds are that both that person isn't coming back as well as their names would likely be safe if they were to return due to odds.

(1) Unused assets is a somewhat likely assumption but nevertheless an assumption. Will you and others step up, be honest, stop beating around the bush, and plainly state “I do want to see *some* names ‘stolen’ from players that will return if it means access to the genuinely unused assets.” 
 

(2) The “limit” on names is almost incomprehensibly large. We’ll still be working on claiming the first 1% of possible names for a long time, in fact.

[Blackbird71]

1 hour ago, Galaxy Brain said:

It doesn't matter tbh, its a matter of "is this asset in use?" If no, it should be reasonable to be unlocked for use.

 

It does matter, if from no other perspective than "is it worth the devs' time and effort to implement?"

History tells us no.

[OmegaOne]

It's really too bad the original devs didn't foresee the whole naming issue in advance, though considering how Cryptic's subsequent games handled names they seem to have learned their lesson.

Edited August 28, 2021 by OmegaOne

[Blackbird71]

7 minutes ago, OmegaOne said:

It's really too bad the original devs didn't foresee the whole naming issue in advance, though considering how Cryptic's subsequent games handled names they seem to have learned their lesson.

 

Maybe.  I didn't play those games myself, but I heard a lot of complaints about that naming convention.  Some people don't like having both the global and character name showing up over people's heads, or having to type out both for sending tells, invites, etc.

[GraspingVileTerror]

I think referring to our character names as "assets" illustrates one of the fundamental disconnects that I believe contributes to the longevity of this debate:

There is a spectrum of intensity with which members of this community feel a sense of connection to their characters and creations here.  At one end we have those of us who feel personally vested in the "well-being" of our characters (as unhealthy as that may be by some metrics), while others feel such a level of detachment and disposability that it's difficult to empathize with the other end (which might also be argued as unhealthy at the extreme edge).

Some level of detachment is certainly reasonable, but I also don't think it's unreasonable that people are afraid of losing something precious to them.

 

And bigger picture, we really have to come to grips with how much City means to a lot of people, and how different that meaning manifests from one person to another.

[OmegaOne]

21 minutes ago, Blackbird71 said:

 

Maybe.  I didn't play those games myself, but I heard a lot of complaints about that naming convention.  Some people don't like having both the global and character name showing up over people's heads, or having to type out both for sending tells, invites, etc.

The global does not appear over people's heads - at least in Star Trek Online and Neverwinter. And you can turn them off in chat. You can also click on their name in chat or locally to invite them to team etc. It's been a long while since I've played Champions Online but they use the exact same chat system (to the point where you could actually chat with other players across the three games) so I'm assuming the same is there.

[Blackbird71]

56 minutes ago, OmegaOne said:

The global does not appear over people's heads - at least in Star Trek Online and Neverwinter. And you can turn them off in chat. You can also click on their name in chat or locally to invite them to team etc. It's been a long while since I've played Champions Online but they use the exact same chat system (to the point where you could actually chat with other players across the three games) so I'm assuming the same is there.

 

It was Champions in particular where I had heard the complaints.

[OmegaOne]

11 minutes ago, Blackbird71 said:

 

It was Champions in particular where I had heard the complaints.

Was curious so I checked some youtube videos (I'm not downloading the game for this lol) and not an "@" name to be seen over other players heads'. I did see some in the chat, but again you should be able to turn that off in the options. It's not surprising as CO, STO and NW are all built on the same engine, so I'm not sure what people would have been complaining about.

[Grouchybeast]

On 8/27/2021 at 3:08 PM, arcane said:

This is hilarious (because it’s clearly satire at this point right?)

 

Hand on my heart, I'm treating the Name Auction suggestion with all the seriousness it deserves.

[GraspingVileTerror]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe's_law

[Snarky]

34 minutes ago, GraspingVileTerror said:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe's_law

i never knew it was called that.  but i actively aim to make comments that hit that "sweet" spot

[Erratic1]

Just going to note that the name I just grabbed that I was surprised was open: American Beef

 

 

[Dazl]

Just got "Radioactivity" on Excelsior today.

[ZemX]

On 8/28/2021 at 12:12 PM, arcane said:

(1) Unused assets is a somewhat likely assumption but nevertheless an assumption. Will you and others step up, be honest, stop beating around the bush, and plainly state “I do want to see *some* names ‘stolen’ from players that will return if it means access to the genuinely unused assets.” 

 

Not agreeing to your framing of the issue isn't "beating around the bush" nor is it being dishonest.  Yes, a name release policy can result in people coming back after a long absence to names that have been generic'd.   That's already been stated.  More than once I think.  But it's also true that the policy gives people time to keep names they want to keep.  That you don't consider any such time period reasonable is your opinion, not some fact.  I don't agree with your opinion.  I think its more than reasonable and have said so.   I actually think the "two-year log in anywhere" idea was even more reasonable than the written policy which, while it does protect 50s indefinitely, seemingly also requires you to log into every other character in your roster on every server with increasing frequency the lower their levels are.

 

But if you want any vindication, you're already gotten it.  The mere fact the stated policy has never been implemented is the devs agreeing with you that this just isn't (yet) a big enough issue with the playerbase in general to give it priority over other things they could be doing.   Might want to take that "W" and flash it around a bit instead of rehashing old arguments that won't go anywhere.  Just a suggestion.

Edited August 30, 2021 by ZemX

[ZacKing]

On 8/28/2021 at 2:07 PM, Blackbird71 said:

Maybe.  I didn't play those games myself, but I heard a lot of complaints about that naming convention.  Some people don't like having both the global and character name showing up over people's heads, or having to type out both for sending tells, invites, etc.

 

This isn't how it works in those games though.  You can click on someone in chat and invite them just like here.  If you have people complaining about typing stuff out, they're doing it wrong.  

[_Kai_]

Globals in character names is a terrible idea. Yeah yeah 'I want my name' yeah yeah 'it solves all the problems', no it actually creates a big problem where if someone's out to harass you they have all they need to do so no matter when, where, or on who you log into.  Sure now you can get a global name, but unless the person agrees to be global friends you'd have to sit around and /getglobalname every character you see/can think of to stalk them.

 

Running a release is not an automatic wipe.  If anyone remembers from Live, when they did run it, it wasn't like all characters that fit the criteria suddenly became generic, it was that if someone tried to get the name and they created a character, only then would the previous character get genericed. So Dark Lord Darkness would probably still be there unless someone really wanted it 😉 

 

Will it free up all the 'good' names? No.  To do that you'd have to knock available character slots down to some reasonable number, like....30, and somehow restrict number of accounts.

 

Is it worth doing? Yes, but only once.  Nostalgia makes you remember only the good things, and not the bad.  There was massive hype for the 'return of City of Heroes' and I'm sure a massive dropoff once people realized that all their friends aren't here, the game has lots of odd issues, and they are older and busier and its not the social hub it once was in their lives.  Those people might peek in sometime, but realistically not really.  They got their hit and left again.  At three years since HC launch I think it would be appropriate to run a release on accounts that haven't logged in in 2 years for non 50s soley for the sheer number accounts/names/etc that were only here for the hype.

[Dazl]

There is no shortage of names, just a lack of creativity.

[Snarky]

20 minutes ago, Dazl said:

There is no shortage of names, just a lack of creativity.

...you spelled your name Dazl....  which i hope is a attempt at creative spelling on Dazzle.  Although it could be an atomic element or a deap sea creature for all i know.  But still, sure, if you want to spell your name Snrkie or Sanarki there are infinite possibilities

[Dazl]

1 hour ago, Snarky said:

...you spelled your name Dazl....  which i hope is a attempt at creative spelling on Dazzle.  Although it could be an atomic element or a deap sea creature for all i know.  But still, sure, if you want to spell your name Snrkie or Sanarki there are infinite possibilities

Well it turns out that the name is an acronym for the tech Dr Mara DaGrace invented the “Dimensional Augmenting Zero Logic” device that gives her her powers, see creativity. She is also one of very few characters I have that is a play on another word. Even if Dazzle was available I would not have used it for this character.

[nightroarer]

1 hour ago, Snarky said:

...you spelled your name Dazl....  which i hope is a attempt at creative spelling on Dazzle.  Although it could be an atomic element or a deap sea creature for all i know.  But still, sure, if you want to spell your name Snrkie or Sanarki there are infinite possibilities

I have 90+ characters and haven't had to settle for weird spellings, odd phrases, or wacky punctuation. There is only one character with an obvious name that I particularly wanted, so I added the initials of my supergroup after his name as a personal identifier.

 

Good superhero names are still available. There are many variations available using traditional comic book conventions (e.g., Doctor, Captain, Scarlet, Silver, Lord, Lady, and so forth), not to mention relevant synonyms (the ones that make sense :) ). I may not get the first name I try, but I can keep the name consistent with my chosen theme without too much hassle. The last four characters I created are Obsidian Archer (trick arrow), Whelm (war hammer), Swiftstroke (ninja blades), and Commander Kilowatt (electric melee). 

 

History has shown us that running a name release can have minimal impact. I think if HC does it, the people unhappy about not getting their preferred names will remain unhappy, because they still won't get the names they want. In a few months, we'll see another thread about releasing names again. We saw that on the original servers after they did their name release.

 

For anyone who is interested, I've attached a couple of docs with potential name components to help generate ideas, if needed. It is nowhere near exhaustive, and I haven't filled in ideas for all power types yet (especially for the newer powersets).

super_name_components.doc sh_name_prefix_suffix.doc

[macskull]

4 hours ago, _Kai_ said:

Globals in character names is a terrible idea. Yeah yeah 'I want my name' yeah yeah 'it solves all the problems', no it actually creates a big problem where if someone's out to harass you they have all they need to do so no matter when, where, or on who you log into.  Sure now you can get a global name, but unless the person agrees to be global friends you'd have to sit around and /getglobalname every character you see/can think of to stalk them.

Uhh, you're aware /getlocalname has been around for a long time, right?