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

[Bionic_Flea]

*Leaves to name squat "I'll be Bach" and every other classic composer I can think of.*

[lemming]

Quick question for possibly @Number Six

 

I noticed if I try to change my name on the character select list, the days offline gets reset to zero.

One good way to test this is by trying to change your name to "Wolverine" or some other name that the system rejects out of hand.

 

addendum: Dang it, just tried this out on Brainstorm, and it no longer resets the time.   Thought I had found a way to get around the login time issue.

[Bionic_Flea]

2 minutes ago, lemming said:

Thought I had found a way to get around the login time issue.

 

Number Six gave careful readers a work around . . .

[lemming]

5 minutes ago, Bionic_Flea said:

 

Number Six gave careful readers a work around . . .

That will work for those that have a SG group with all their chars in it.  (Assuming that the rank shift is what you're talking about)

If not, I just got my first cup of coffee and may get back to careful reader status. 😉

[PainX]

you know i wonder how will the slow loaders do we all play with them here and there they are gonna be stuck logging in and out for like 1h30m or something crazy like that gonna be abit of pissy people around i imagine feeling abit like they get bashed for having cheaper rigs so i think it needs better implementation just my 2 cents though

[UltraAlt]

1 hour ago, Jacke said:

Be pure. Be vigilant. Behave.

Ack! Maybe I should have posed this one the weapon sheathing thread.....

[ScarySai]

Would we be able to ask a gm about the status of a name once this is in place? There's a few I have been trying to track down and I have no clue if it's a hoarder, or an inactive.

 

As for the system itself, I think it should be a little harsher to the lowest level bracket, particularly 1. I'm on Everlast, I get ro chars exist, but if you can't even be assed to level to ten, you don't care about that character, let's be real.

 

Making playtime a factor would probably clean things up considerably, if it could be done.

Edited July 18, 2022 by ScarySai

[Number Six]

20 minutes ago, Bionic_Flea said:

 

Number Six gave careful readers a work around . . .

 

I said the opposite, that work-around won't work anymore. TBH I thought that particular issue was fixed ages ago -- it was on the radar because people complain about the last active time being wrong -- but apparently it wasn't. It is now, in all its incarnations.

 

That includes offline promote/demote, altinvite, failed renames, etc. Even the little-known glitch that checking a name during character creation resets the 'last active' of the first character on your roster (serverside, not what's in playerslot.txt) to 0, because we're dealing with 18 years of piled-on hacks and workarounds and the name check for some insane reason is a mapserver relay command that has to load one of your characters onto a map briefly in order to run it.

[ScarySai]

Seeing Six pissed kinda scares me.

[Peacemoon]

I think a lot of games have a ‘name release’ function these days and overall I’m perfectly happy with it. The fact that max level characters are immune is perfect, and this is a nice system that runs by itself with clear warnings to the player.

 

I’m not sure if every month should be required though for level 1 characters. I think 3 months sounds fairer. That gives people less chance of losing a name due to a brief period of inactivity, whilst still freeing up names that haven’t been used in quite a while.

 

Otherwise it’s a bit of a culture change for CoH, so will take some getting used to for some, but overall I think very beneficial for the game.

[ShardWarrior]

59 minutes ago, Number Six said:

1. It could be done during maintenance, though we currently don't have any manual SQL tasks to be run doing maintenance - I wouldn't want to schedule it because maintenance time is not always consistent due to availability. It would mean additional burden on server ops to run the scripts on each database. I'm not sure how viable I'd consider this, since that would mean that it only updates once a week and names could be vulnerable in the interim.

 

I understand not wanting to put any additional burden on a volunteer group.  With that said, were this my team I would rather the burden be on us to solve this problem instead of our end users having to be inconvenienced. 

 

1 hour ago, Number Six said:

2. Probably. It's naturally rate limited since most of the time it takes to log onto a character is the client loading the zone. People already do this for anniversary badges, etc.

 

Anniversary badges are not as frequent as this is going to be. 

 

I appreciate your time in providing answers.  I understand that there is no changing any of this at this point.

[Andreah]

One thing I would like to see is a "Yellow Alert" level that would show up a few days before a character was going to get the red triangle of vulnerability.

[ShardWarrior]

11 minutes ago, Peacemoon said:

I think a lot of games have a ‘name release’ function these days and overall I’m perfectly happy with it.

 

Every more modern game I have seen does not have this because it is not necessary.  Cryptic fixed this in the engine upgrade they used for CO and STO which made the need for a name release irrelevant.  Names are a combination of character@account as far as the system is concerned.  I personally have seen several duplicate player Captains named Jean Luc Pikard or James T. K1rk running around in STO.   It just is not that big of a deal. 

[Number Six]

2 minutes ago, ShardWarrior said:

Anniversary badges are not as frequent as this is going to be.

 

Level 21+ is 365 days which is comparable, and per internal discussions we're considering extending that to some of the lower levels as well. Of course I didn't really want to mention that yet since everything is in flux until release and may change from one build to the next, but it's definitely not set in stone. There have been some other good ideas too that seem feasible to implement, like looking at time played to avoid affecting slow levelers or roleplayers too harshly, but again it's early in the process.

 

Even once page 4 goes live, remember that we are not activating enforcement just yet, because we want to make sure people have plenty of time to adjust.

[ShardWarrior]

23 minutes ago, ScarySai said:

Would we be able to ask a gm about the status of a name once this is in place? There's a few I have been trying to track down and I have no clue if it's a hoarder, or an inactive.

 

Were this auto-release thing only applied to dead accounts, there would be no reason to contact a GM because the names would be released automatically due to account inactivity.  If the person is still playing, you can get their global handle and contact them to negotiate.

[Stoked]

I realize that with all the traffic in this and the threads concerning AE feature changes, there is a lot of negative feedback. I want to be careful to point out that I for one really appreciate everything that the developers do to keep the game available. That's as sincere as it gets. But please, save everyone the effort of trying to help come up with ideas or better ways of doing things if you're just not interested.

 

You can't add an ID column and use that because the whole code base would have to be rewritten. You can't do updates on login because of multi-threading. You don't want to run a SQL process off-peak hours for one or more reasons. I mean, apparently there is no solution available except to annoy people endlessly into giving up their names so you or a friend of yours can get it. The whole idea of a player being able to catch a name that's been freed up is a fraud. We have no way of knowing the name was freed. What are you going to do ... post a daily list of all the newly available names here so 2 million people can login and try grab it?

 

I mean, why even bother telling us that you're going to do any of this stuff? Why call this a feedback thread when the only real interest is hearing "everything you're doing is great"? Just do it and let everyone know after the fact since we have no control over what the decision is anyway.

 

This is the kind of drama that turned vets away from this game in the past. Is there actually ANY interest at all in growing the population of unique gamers or ultimately just to dwindle it back down to the "inner circle" that was playing before you were forced to open it up to everyone? The Devs inevitably do something like hiding/deleting posts or creating alt accounts to post from so it looks like more people are looking for something, etc. That destroys the integrity of the community. Once that happens, it really doesn't matter what you say or do, no one will ever trust you again. And that's the real tragedy. Games like this are healthy long term not just because they're fun but because the Devs have made a concerted effort to gain and maintain the trust of the community.  Without it, you may as well just own it and tell everyone you really don't care what they have to say ... just play the game we've provided or go away.

 

 

 

[ShardWarrior]

2 hours ago, Andreah said:

Moreso, I expect and consider it almost without question that the vast majority of the names in the database are held by a small fraction of the total accounts, and worse, many of these accounts with many names are held by the same actual player.

 

If this is the case, which I am extremely skeptical of, would it not be better to deal with that one individual instead of inconveniencing everyone else? 

[arcane]

*Devs solicit feedback*
*Feedback given*
*Some feedback incorporated, some not*
*”The devs don’t give a shit at all because MY feedback wasn’t incorporated!”*
 

Not how it works, people.

[Stoked]

1 minute ago, arcane said:

*Devs solicit feedback*
*Feedback given*
*Some feedback incorporated, some not*
*”The devs don’t give a shit at all because MY feedback wasn’t incorporated!”*
 

Not how it works, people.

I think you may be making an incorrect assumption here that I feel my suggestions must be incorporated. That's not the case at all. My preference is to leave the names alone altogether or allow players to contact each other and work it out without the COH governing body getting in the way. This is another tactic like hiding or deleting posts that destroys community. Purposefully spinning someone's feedback that you don't agree with so that it seems absurd or invalid is totally inappropriate but thanks for your response.

 

Since we've already seen examples of devs creating alt accounts and using them to post here no one can make an informed decision about what the community is looking for or if it's just the devs themselves. Again, this whole thread and others like it labeled "feedback threads" are a misnomer then and the process falls flat on its face because there is no trust. 

[Doc_Scorpion]

24 minutes ago, Stoked said:

Why call this a feedback thread when the only real interest is hearing "everything you're doing is great"?

In some universe where the "only real interest" is hearing "everything you're doing is great" - that would be a valid question.  We don't live in such a universe.
 

 

36 minutes ago, Andreah said:

One thing I would like to see is a "Yellow Alert" level that would show up a few days before a character was going to get the red triangle of vulnerability.

According to Number Six that's already part of the system.  (A suggestion has already been made to update the patch notes to reflect this.)
 

 

[EmperorSteele]

19 minutes ago, ShardWarrior said:

 

If this is the case, which I am extremely skeptical of, would it not be better to deal with that one individual instead of inconveniencing everyone else? 

 

Check out Player2's "name release" thread in the Excelsior forum. Yes, those are all names he grabbed, then eventually decided to delete. And he (and others lile him) probably have more.

 

Why the GMs just don't do something about those few? Because they're volunteers and shouldn't have to adjudicate whether someone is name squatting or just has severe altitis. Also, there's no rule against name squatting, so, there's nothing to enforce. Having it be an automatic system thing relieves them of responsibility if they were to mess up. Like, if you were gone for a year and found out half your characters were generic'd, what would piss you off more: That the system automatically did it because you were inactive, or that a GM went into your account and renamed all your toons because someone else wanted the names?

[lemming]

57 minutes ago, Number Six said:

 

I said the opposite, that work-around won't work anymore.

So, even more careful reading...   😄   Thanks @Number Six for explaining some of this.

[Peacemoon]

Also people hoarding names is not against the rules, even if it is inconsiderate to other players. I think it’s hard to for the devs to ‘target the worst offenders’ if there is no policy or rule that they are breaking. 
 

The nice thing about this system is it will just generally free up names over time automatically, with clear warnings and and clear consistent rules that apply to everyone equally.

[Number Six]

Which devs are using alt accounts? DM me details and I'll personally smack them because I have no tolerance for dev sockpuppeting in feedback threads.

 

Note that's not the same thing as GMs posting on alt accounts. GMs' role is that of community support and moderation and they are not involved in development direction. We specifically encourage GMs to post their gameplay feedback on civilian accounts rather than their GM account to avoid it having the appearance of an official statement.

[ShardWarrior]

9 minutes ago, EmperorSteele said:

Check out Player2's "name release" thread in the Excelsior forum. Yes, those are all names he grabbed, then eventually decided to delete. And he (and others lile him) probably have more.

 

Well, for starters, you have no way of knowing how long they had the names in question.  For all anyone knows, these were costume or character experiments they had for a few minutes and decided not to keep.  Nor is it any indication on how many total characters the person has in total.  If this is the same person I think it is, they post A LOT in the costume showoff thread, so these may indeed be just costume experiments that are only around for a very brief time.  Second, if they are publicly releasing names then they are not really squatting them, are they?  Third, so what?  So long as that player is active in the game and you are able to contact them to negotiate releasing a name, why is this an issue?  Why are they obligated to turn it over to you if they do not want to? 

Edited July 18, 2022 by ShardWarrior