issue 27 Focused Feedback: Name Release Policy - Phase 1: Warning Mode

[Bionic_Flea]

Pardon me for not having read the entire thread, but something just occurred to me.  Could the new naming policy be used offensively?  By that I mean could someone steal your character names for spite, knowing that you've been away for some time.  For example, could an ex-significant other steal all your names while you were militarily deployed or hospitalized or just busy with work for several months?  Only to then return to find many of your character names have been taken.

 

While I understand the need and desire to prevent name-camping of unplayed characters, I think we need some kind of regulator that prevents name stealing out of spite.

[Ergonyos]

Hello.

 

Just logged in to leave some feedback, as I'm not looking forward to this particular change.

 

Why? Well, this game is particularly punitive on power-leveling, since it locks you out of most content once you reach lvl 50. Ouroboros is only a bandaid, and not really an answer - it doesn't unlock regular contacts for you, so they'll keep treating you as a stranger once the flashback is over - you don't get their phone number, they don't sell you inspirations, and more importantly, they don't show up as friend/confident on your contact list. Ouroboros merely lets you play a small selection of the missions and hand you a clue. Access to regular content actually requires you to keep your toons unleveled, to turn xp-gain off every 5 levels. It's good to have a few max-level incarnates for iTrials and Hami-runs, but if you enjoy the leveling experience, it might conceivably take you around 2 months or so to reach max level. On my account, I have exactly 3 pages of planned toons (i.e. 30 characters), which will realistically reach max level in around 5 years (2 months each). It sounds reasonable to me that I get to keep their names.

 

If this change goes live, my workaround will be to power-level every toon to at least lvl 21, then log those toons once a year. When it's time to play that toon, delete it and start over. It does sound like a chore, hence why I don't like this change. Yes, it frees up names, but I don't really need them, I'd much rather keep my own.

 

A few suggestions:

1) Consider applying this policy only to inactive accounts (at least one year without activity), so it'd be 1 year, plus the mentioned 30 / 60 / 365 days till the name gets freed up.

2) Consider postponing this policy until you implement a better answer to outleveling regular contacts.

 

Thank you for reading.

 

[AlwaysAPrice]

1 hour ago, Bionic_Flea said:

Pardon me for not having read the entire thread, but something just occurred to me.  Could the new naming policy be used offensively?  By that I mean could someone steal your character names for spite, knowing that you've been away for some time.  For example, could an ex-significant other steal all your names while you were militarily deployed or hospitalized or just busy with work for several months?  Only to then return to find many of your character names have been taken.

 

While I understand the need and desire to prevent name-camping of unplayed characters, I think we need some kind of regulator that prevents name stealing out of spite.

 

It's a niche enough case I imagine the possibility is seen as acceptable collateral, but it almost definitely will happen. Speaking as someone who had to deal with someone preemptively camping the names of my and several friends mains after new server openings. Twice.

That said, it seems like something that must qualify as some form of actionable harassment to report to the GMs when it does happen, though that would require them to have some standard by which to determine whether it was harassment or just "I thought you were done playing, I took the name when the server's policies allowed me to, mine now".

[Gadzookery]

I thought I'd post a reminder, especially to those who claim they MUST now level EVERY character to 50, that the majority of the threshhold (21 - 49) is if they have not been played in the past year. You don't have to power level to 50 at all as once a year is absolutely more than enough time to log into a character and you'll probably do so naturally at least once in that year, so there'll be no need to do check ins and stuff like that. (And if you do have alts that haven't logged in in over a year I believe you should seriously consider whether you want to keep them or not anyways because somethings stopping you from playing them for an entire year) I feel people are hyperfocusing on the 30 days. You are not gonna be pressured to log in to all 100 or so alts every month (which IMO is already A LOT of alts), unless they're all like level 1s (in which case wtf??)

 

I feel like some people are kind of afraid they might just suddenly get name wipes out of nowhere for characters they don't necesarilly play much but are still attached to, and names are gonna be snatched away but that's not the case. I think some people are trying to make this seem like its gonna be more of a chore than it is and that they're gonna have to be logging in all 200 characters of theirs every single month. Which just won't be the case. I do agree the level 1 - 5 threshhold is a little too short, I'd say 60 days instead of 30s as some people do have low level RP alts, but thats what? One DFB run to get out of that threshold? That gets you to level 7. If anything most people will barely even notice it. Why? Because everyone's bound to log into their characters once a year naturally. Which is again, the majority thresh hold. The longest character I haven't logged into is 100 and something days and I'm like "Do I really wanna keep that character? I dont play them much" and thats not even half of the 364 day thresh hold.

Edited July 15, 2022 by Gadzookery

[EmperorSteele]

Personally, i think the times should be lowered, and even level 50's shouldn't be 100% safe. I mean, if you haven't played a character in over a year, you're not really playing it at all. Also, with all the panic leveling going on, the policy will only be hitting inactive accounts at this rate anyway. No need to allow people to sit on names of characters they spent an hour farming up then never looked at again.

[AlwaysAPrice]

5 minutes ago, Gadzookery said:

Because everyone's bound to log into their characters once a year naturally.

 

It is way easier than you'd think to lose the ability to log in for a year or more at a time.

Like I'm not saying it's going to happen that often, but things will happen to some people with or without warning that will prevent them from having the ability to log in. When things are going bad enough, one might also be amazed how low a priority logging in to a game to do fiddly maintenance tasks becomes, even when that game is something you've previously invested thousands of hours and oodles of creativity and effort and time in.

Again, it's not going to happen to a lot of people, but the general use-it-or-lose-it crowd could stand to keep in mind that it's going to happen to some.

[Gadzookery]

9 minutes ago, AlwaysAPrice said:

 

It is way easier than you'd think to lose the ability to log in for a year or more at a time.

Like I'm not saying it's going to happen that often, but things will happen to some people with or without warning that will prevent them from having the ability to log in. When things are going bad enough, one might also be amazed how low a priority logging in to a game to do fiddly maintenance tasks becomes, even when that game is something you've previously invested thousands of hours and oodles of creativity and effort and time in.

Again, it's not going to happen to a lot of people, but the general use-it-or-lose-it crowd could stand to keep in mind that it's going to happen to some.

 

Well some things to consider concerning that:

Like you said, thats gonna be a niche of a niche issue.

The thresh hold isn't even a "Okay once that year is up your name is GONE, wiped, you're renamed" kind of deal. Its a warning system. That's when the warning appears, and then someone else has to take that name which could take anywhere from up to a day, to 1000 days, to never. So that buys even more time for that person to check in.

And finally I think the most important one - The GM's aren't gonna bite that person's head off if they tell them that. They do tons of things by requests, I've seen it. If they're willing to do stuff like help out with CCs and events, I'm sure just ticketing or PMing one saying "Hey I'm gonna be inactive from this point to this point due to this personal reason. I won't be able to log in, can you make sure my names arent lost" They're not gonna go "NO, YOUR NAMES ARE FORFEIT" and throw them into the wind.

Also while what you're saying is possible, the chance of this happening to someone where they can't log in for a while year and then they proceed to lose all their names, is pretty low that it doesn't overwrite all the people annoyed they can't find the names they want because its taken by some guy who hasn't logged in since the first month of HC or new players who literally can't come up with a name for their first cahracter anymore that aren't full of punctuation just to get it past availability

[Marbing]

2 hours ago, Bionic_Flea said:

Pardon me for not having read the entire thread, but something just occurred to me.  Could the new naming policy be used offensively?  By that I mean could someone steal your character names for spite, knowing that you've been away for some time.  For example, could an ex-significant other steal all your names while you were militarily deployed or hospitalized or just busy with work for several months?  Only to then return to find many of your character names have been taken.

 

While I understand the need and desire to prevent name-camping of unplayed characters, I think we need some kind of regulator that prevents name stealing out of spite.

This is a good point. Possibly something that person (if they are able to) should work out with a trusted friend, kind of like asking someone to take care of a pet for you. Just have said friend log in for you. I know that isn't a perfect solution but it is something to consider to cover some of those cases. 


Though, getting the toon to 50 would also work. As is, I know that also isn't a perfect solution.

[Andreah]

Maybe what's needed is a  routine means to notify the GM staff that you wish to lock your account for a period of time, maybe up to 90 days,, and an easy way for them to make it happen on the back end. While "locked" your account's characters would not progress on the release timers, or at least names past their fresh dates not be claimable by other players.

 

I wouldn't want this to be trivial for players alone to do -- it should have a human GM in the loop to exercise judgment. But make it easy to do on the back end.

Edited July 15, 2022 by Andreah

[Bionic_Flea]

Or perhaps a limit on how many "old names" a single account can claim?

 

It would seem odd to me that one account should suddenly claim several names from another specific account.  For that matter, it would seem odd to me that one account should suddenly claim multiple names from multiple accounts.  That, to me, implies a new name camper.

[Ukase]

So...my only question is how do we test this on Brainstorm? 

Names can be quite important to folks for a number of reasons. And, well, it would truly suck to find out you got renamed because of some glitch, rather than it working as intended. 

Some of us have characters on multiple servers. I think it would be nice if there were some message via email or some other method in case we found ourselves in the habit of just playing on one or two servers primarily for a stretch. 

As an example, I moved from Torchbearer to Excelsior, but sometimes play on Indom or Everlasting. Poor Torch often goes ignored. Still, I have some characters there that aren't quite 50 and I'd hate to lose those names. But, you know, out of sight is often out of mind. If I neglect to check into the server, I'd miss the warning completely, wouldn't I? 

[Andreah]

15 minutes ago, Bionic_Flea said:

Or perhaps a limit on how many "old names" a single account can claim?

 

I suggested a token claim system earlier in this thread, where we would get to claim about one released name per week, and no more than two in any week. 

 

[AlwaysAPrice]

26 minutes ago, Andreah said:

Maybe what's needed is a  routine means to notify the GM staff that you wish to lock your account for a period of time, maybe up to 90 days,, and an easy way for them to make it happen on the back end. While "locked" your account's characters would not progress on the release timers, or at least names past their fresh dates not be claimable by other players.

 

I wouldn't want this to be trivial for players alone to do -- it should have a human GM in the loop to exercise judgment. But make it easy to do on the back end.

 

A cushion like this would solve my main concern. I'd prefer something fully automated for the sake of player privacy over making people "justify" their difficult situations, something like: you can request this lock and once you've done so your characters are protected for 365 days (the maximum of the release system), but as soon as you log in again that lock is lifted and your account can't request another lock until that 365 days has passed. Sure someone could always have two bad things happen to them in a year and still end up vulnerable but this much would be a nice consideration to include to help mitigate against unexpected life circumstances.

 

[UltraAlt]

7 hours ago, Trike said:

Yes. I have one character who will always be level 1, regardless of what his combat level is, because it’s a fun/weird experiment. He also doesn’t talk, because he can’t. He’s fiendishly hard to play (try getting on a team without talking!), so I rarely take him out of the toy box. Currently it’s been 78 days.

 

I have another that will always remain level 2, as another experiment. I have a third that has stopped leveling at 10. These are hardcore toons that I don’t play much, but they’re fun to trot out every now and again.

 

That's two characters.

If they are important to you, you should be able to keep with logging them. I would put them on the first page of characters so that you can keep track of them.

 

7 hours ago, Trike said:

I also have holiday-specific characters who only come out once a year, so they level very slowly. I have a number of Halloween and Christmas characters who are… let me check… 6, 8,  8, 13, 15, 20, 21, 23, and 47, plus a couple 1s and 2s I’ve made in anticipation of this year’s events. 

 

I have bunch of spooky characters, but they don't just run around during the Halloween event.

I have bunch of Winter World characters. They come out during the rest of the year as well ... wait a minute! Where is the Winter Holiday in July event!?

 

I probably 10-15 that are sub 20 that I will have to relog as I'm in no race to level them up. I am keeping them low to lead or join DFBs only but Torchbearer isn't as busy as it used to be.

One is on Indomitable, but I can never find a team over there and soloing just isn't anywhere near as fun to me as teaming.

 

7 hours ago, Trike said:

I get the need for this change, but I kind of hate it.

 

Honestly, I'm not a fan of it, but it isn't worth my time to "hate" it.

Those that are pushing it are doing it because of players like you camping names instead of playing them.

 

6 hours ago, Parabola said:

A few. Some are ideas that are waiting for me to find the time, others are concepts that require at's/sets that I consider to be underperforming and are awaiting buffs.

 

6 hours ago, Parabola said:

I'm very likely to spend a bit time powerlevelling these characters so I don't have to log into them as often (ironically by dusting off my alt account fire farmer that I otherwise never use).

 

6 hours ago, Parabola said:

So any character powerlevelled to get around this policy is always going to be rerolled back to 1 when the time comes to play them for real.

 

Thanks. This proves my point about it causing power-leveling simply to lock-in names.

How much this will happen and how many plan on or will do it is left to be seen after implementation.

 

6 hours ago, Parabola said:

The thing I particularly don't like about the implementation of this policy is that it will change how I play. I know I am going to feel pressured into sticking with characters to get them to the higher level thresholds whether I really want to play that character or not.

 

I had over 150 characters before the sunset (only 128 at this point on Homecoming), when there was a special event I would log them all in. Now I just log them in based on if the badge or whatnot fits the character.

I won't have to log all of them in every month. 

I will have to log in a few every quarter.

I usually end up logging in all my characters within a year. I kind of doubt I have ever had a character offline for a year since homecoming is back. Up into the hundred days for sure, but doubt over 200.

 

I have some 10-15 characters that are sub level 20 that have been around for a long time, but I actually log some of them relatively often.

 

It really isn't that painful to keep up with if  you keep track of your low level characters and log a several each week in rotation.

[UltraAlt]

19 hours ago, DawL said:

Oh, well that makes sense.  😞   Is there a way to flag all characters on a shard when the account is logged in? I'm thinking like the mechanic that gives "known names" in Notes, btw. 

 

I think the intent is not to make it easy to log all your characters at once.

I mean, if you can to that, then you aren't taking time to look at your characters ... because that is part of the issue to some people.

It's name camping made easy if you can log all your characters at once and name camping is the reason for this.

 

I don't think name camping is a good thing, but I don't especially like the this mechanic, but, because I am an alt-jumper and the way that live in THE CITY, it really isn't going to affect me that of often. When I see a warning that the countdown has started, I'll be logging them in.

 

It shouldn't take that much effort if you are logging in a character that you really want the name on.

[GM Impervium]

In regards to GM intervention:

 

I don't know that we would be able to lock the names within an account. And even if we could, what's to stop someone from hoarding a bunch of level 1 names on an alt account, then coming to us and saying "Oh, I have to move out of the country for a few months, can you lock my characters? ;-)" Thus negating the entire reason for the name release policy.

 

Granted, in that specfic hypothetical scenario, I'd look at the account, see it's all level 1s created a few days ago, and say "lol no". 😛

 

But it's probably a moot point in any case. As it stands, locking an account would currently make names easier to grab, as the player wouldn't be able to log their characters in. As Six noted, the account, and the characters on the account, are handled by separate systems. So that's a technical hurdle.

 

As a matter of policy, well, asking us to subvert the rules Cipher put into place probably isn't going to fly. And generally speaking, I feel like this would be a hands-off issue for us.

 

If for some reason that changes and we're allowed to grant temporary moratoriums? We'll let you know. However, for now, assume that won't happen.

[UltraAlt]

55 minutes ago, Andreah said:

While "locked" your account's characters would not progress on the release timers, or at least names past their fresh dates not be claimable by other players.

 

I first thought this was an interesting concept, but, then the whole "If most normal people had superpowers, they would be supervillains" thing started creeping in, It just opens the door for people to name camp with alternate accounts and then put them into this state until they decide that they actually want to play that name.

Edited July 15, 2022 by UltraAlt
GM Impervium beat me to it!

[Andreah]

3 minutes ago, UltraAlt said:

It just opens the door for people to name camp with alternate accounts and then put them into this state until they decide that they actually want to play that name

You are probably right. It would be abused, or encourage otherwise decent players to try to fib/lie to GMs for name retention advantage.

[Excraft]

Just adding my agreement to those who have said this needs to be account based, not character based.  Going to get super annoying real quick to log into alts that are in various stages of being worked on all the time just to preserve a name.  "It's hard to code" isn't an acceptable excuse for not doing this by account.

[Excraft]

On 7/12/2022 at 7:30 PM, Number Six said:

Account data lives on a separate system from the individual shards. It would take a much more substantial rewrite of the character list code to for it to be able to query that efficiently.

 

Difficult or not, this is the correct way to do this.  Just have any login to the account update all characters on all shards.

[Arnabas]

I thought this was already active. Sigh. I have been logging characters in/ out daily for months for no reason. 

[Doc_Scorpion]

The system tries to have its cake and eat it too.  If it's hard for active campers for hoard names (per a GM comment elsewhere in the thread), then it's going to be difficult for normal players to maintain their roster as well.  Under the proposed system you can't have it both ways - both difficult for the campers and easy for the active players.  It's an onerous burden on active players to have to "prove" their worthiness to a name on an ongoing basis.

That's why I've always been an advocate of account level action.  It may be difficult from a developer point of view, I appreciate that...  But if it can't be done right, minimizing the burden on actual active players (accepting that a few bad apples will slip through), then it shouldn't be done at all.

[UltraAlt]

26 minutes ago, Doc_Scorpion said:

It's an onerous burden on active players to have to "prove" their worthiness to a name on an ongoing basis.

 

It does seem like several people are expressing it is a burden.

 

There are other expressing that it isn't that much of a burden if you really care about the character names you picked.

I'm at 128 characters and I do not feel that it will be an undue burden on me to log my characters ... and future characters because of this.

Easier if I didn't have to do it, sure.

But for the most part, I think I'm pretty much already abiding by this.

[Starhammer]

So, sort of related... With new data related to characters being shown on the character selection screen, there's some other character data I'd love to see here too, specifically what SG a character is in (if any) and whether they've completed a Patron arc. I have too many alts, and some hints would be helpful from time to time. I bet there's some other character specific data others might find useful during selection too.

[Oubliette_Red]

Character Copy tool is currently unavailable so I can't check at the moment but could a be placed on the page button (for those with multiple pages of characters) to indicate that there are characters on other pages that also have a warning on them?