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

[Excraft]

21 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.

 

You mean this @Player2?  The one that's posting different character concepts in the costume showoff thread several times a day nearly every day?  I'm not at all surprised they've got a lot of character names being used to make new concept designs.  And since he's releasing them to the public, he's not squatting them.  You don't know if they've got more than a dozen characters at once either.  See, that's what happens when you assume.  You're assuming you know the answer when you don't have all the facts.  Remember what that old saying is about what happens when you assume...

[Stoked]

19 minutes ago, Peacemoon said:

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.

Yes, the names will eventually be freed up but how will we know that or when? That's why this policy makes no sense. The only ones able to benefit from the name releases are those that see the data. Without a solution to offer the newly available name to the next person that tried it, in order of time/date typed into the UI, this is no solution at all. Because equality of opportunity is what the whole point of this is right? If so, then the 2nd person to want to the name should get it.

[BurtHutt]

How about you also not give anyone making an account, when Page 4 drops, 1000 character slots? Like I said before, maybe start with 50 or 100 per shard. As you actually play then provide the option of requesting more. 

[Andreah]

2 minutes ago, BurtHutt said:

How about you also not give anyone making an account, when Page 4 drops, 1000 character slots? Like I said before, maybe start with 50 or 100 per shard. As you actually play then provide the option of requesting more. 

It may sound good in theory, but there would just be more accounts made to get around it.

[BurtHutt]

2 hours ago, Andreah said:

It may sound good in theory, but there would just be more accounts made to get around it.

Fair. But, I feel it would still curb SOME of the name hoarding. Mind you, I still find names I like now but they're definitely not my top choices 🙂 

Edited July 18, 2022 by BurtHutt

[Player2]

 

29 minutes ago, Excraft said:

 

You mean this @Player2?  The one that's posting different character concepts in the costume showoff thread several times a day nearly every day?  I'm not at all surprised they've got a lot of character names being used to make new concept designs.  And since he's releasing them to the public, he's not squatting them.  You don't know if they've got more than a dozen characters at once either.  See, that's what happens when you assume.  You're assuming you know the answer when you don't have all the facts.  Remember what that old saying is about what happens when you assume...

Definitely that Player2.  I'll admit, I keep a lot.  Anything I play into at least the high 20s or low 30s had my interest for fun, so I keep them.

 

But yes, lower level concepts that I've created and never put more than a couple dozen levels on eventually find their way back to the public along with an announcement in shard-specific name release thread.

 

For the record, I also have some names up for trade.  These names are for characters that I would be renaming if I can get the ones I'm looking for.  Recently someone contacted me about giving me one (for my beloved main, Big Girl) and asked for none in return, so when Big Girl got her name on Excelsior, I let everyone know that her alt name of Large Lass was available for whomever wanted it.  Not a name hoarder, but I do use a lot of them.  🙂

Edited July 18, 2022 by Player2

[Andreah]

10 minutes ago, BurtHutt said:

Fair. But, I feel it would still curb SOME of the name hoarding. Mind you, I still find names I like now but they're definitely my top choices 🙂 

I sometimes wish, back when HC had launched, that there'd been a rate limit on making fresh characters. Like, one per day, for the first month the servers were up. 

[Excraft]

30 minutes ago, Player2 said:

Definitely that Player2.  I'll admit, I keep a lot.  Anything I play into at least the high 20s or low 30s had my interest for fun, so I keep them.

 

But yes, lower level concepts that I've created and never put more than a couple dozen levels on eventually find their way back to the public along with an announcement in shard-specific name release thread.

 

For the record, I also have some names up for trade.  These names are for characters that I would be renaming if I can get the ones I'm looking for.  Recently someone contacted me about giving me one (for my beloved main, Big Girl) and asked for none in return, so when Big Girl got her name on Excelsior, I let everyone know that her alt name of Large Lass was available for whomever wanted it.  Not a name hoarder, but I do use a lot of them.  🙂

 

You dirty name hoarder!!  How dare you steal all those names!!  🤣

 

Yes, I am joking. 😉

[ForeverLaxx]

Seems to me we have a lot of unconfirmed speculation about name hoarders, but we do have confirmed reports of players who obsessively check names and try to hunt down people to confirm whether they're a dead account or not to try and swipe names from them.

 

I'm not sure which is more sad, but I did find humor in the obsessive name checkers who have "no sympathy" for others they believe are entitled/selfish... you know, as they obsessively name check and hound accounts for such in-demand names like Big Girl.

 

I said it before, but I don't believe this policy is going to amount to anyone getting that long-lost name they wanted a year ago but had to settle for a lazy synonym. Of course, I knew this policy would be enacted some day, but to hear that people are actively checking a list of names they feel like they deserve, hoping the original owner has deleted the character/quit is... yeah, I think I decided which I find more sad of the two situations above.

[ShardWarrior]

6 minutes ago, ForeverLaxx said:

Seems to me we have a lot of unconfirmed speculation about name hoarders, but we do have confirmed reports of players who obsessively check names and try to hunt down people to confirm whether they're a dead account or not to try and swipe names from them.

 

I'm not sure which is more sad, but I did find humor in the obsessive name checkers who have "no sympathy" for others they believe are entitled/selfish... you know, as they obsessively name check and hound accounts for such in-demand names like Big Girl.

 

I said it before, but I don't believe this policy is going to amount to anyone getting that long-lost name they wanted a year ago but had to settle for a lazy synonym. Of course, I knew this policy would be enacted some day, but to hear that people are actively checking a list of names they feel like they deserve, hoping the original owner has deleted the character/quit is... yeah, I think I decided which I find more sad of the two situations above.

 

Nor is there any guarantee that these "no sympathy" entitled people who are checking names daily are going to actually use any of the names they may wind up getting either, so the net result is nothing. 

[Player2]

35 minutes ago, Excraft said:

 

Yes, I am joking. 😉

 

I know.  And, I just released another 31 names on Torchbearer.

Worth a look...  I cut some good ones loose.  😎

 

[Player2]

25 minutes ago, ForeverLaxx said:

Seems to me we have a lot of unconfirmed speculation about name hoarders, but we do have confirmed reports of players who obsessively check names and try to hunt down people to confirm whether they're a dead account or not to try and swipe names from them.

 

I'm not sure which is more sad, but I did find humor in the obsessive name checkers who have "no sympathy" for others they believe are entitled/selfish... you know, as they obsessively name check and hound accounts for such in-demand names like Big Girl.

 

I said it before, but I don't believe this policy is going to amount to anyone getting that long-lost name they wanted a year ago but had to settle for a lazy synonym. Of course, I knew this policy would be enacted some day, but to hear that people are actively checking a list of names they feel like they deserve, hoping the original owner has deleted the character/quit is... yeah, I think I decided which I find more sad of the two situations above.

I only ever contacted one person about a name, during the first few months after things expanded beyond Torchbearer with additional shards, and we traded shards rather than either of us giving up the name.

 

When I want names that are currently unavailable, I post an open request here in the forum letting people know what I'm trying to acquire.  I never hunt down and badger people.

Three times people have contacted me in response to my open inquiries, and I am very pleased with the interaction.  I have contacted a few people in game when I saw them with a misspelled name or featuring symbols to get what they wanted to offer up the correct spelling of the name.  Two took me up on it, and the other preferred the weird spelling.

 

I have always been in favor of the name release policy that Homecoming announced early on, and I'm genuinely surprised that they took as long as they did before they started to implement it.  Of course, more preferable would be a system where character names were not unique and everyone could play as what they want.  But, alas, I've been told that the code is too much spaghetti to untangle to tie everything to global names that way.

[Kataklysm]

2 hours ago, Stoked said:

Yes, the names will eventually be freed up but how will we know that or when? That's why this policy makes no sense. The only ones able to benefit from the name releases are those that see the data. Without a solution to offer the newly available name to the next person that tried it, in order of time/date typed into the UI, this is no solution at all. Because equality of opportunity is what the whole point of this is right? If so, then the 2nd person to want to the name should get it.

What are both of you talking about, the policy just allows the name to be used if someone -trys- to use it and the character is within the inactivity brackets, and, clear in game flags are put on characters close to being within claim policy.

[ForeverLaxx]

1 hour ago, Player2 said:

When I want names that are currently unavailable, I post an open request here in the forum letting people know what I'm trying to acquire.  I never hunt down and badger people.

To be fair, I only used that name you stated as an example of a name that's so generic and common, it's no wonder it was taken and I couldn't really fathom how important such a basic name really is to a character's identity. 90% of the time, when I make a character, I get the name I want without any problems. With the remaining 10%, I do a bit more hunting and background tweaking to explain the name and almost every single time, I end up with a character name and backstory that's better than my original plan. I had one instance where I really struggled to come up with a name, but the one I did end up getting was so multidimensional as a descriptor that I didn't even mind my first 8 attempts at a name didn't work.

 

But then I tend to research terminology and jargon when making my characters so maybe I'm some weird outlier. I don't throw my hands in the air when "Muscle Man" comes back as unavailable.

 

I wasn't accusing you of such things as obsessively checking names to see if "Matter-Eater Lad" (or whatever else) is available. I was merely pointing out that some people in this thread have admitted to doing so, with a mix of pride in the act and frustration in its fruitlessness, calling others "entitled" because they don't think they should have to prove they're using it on a consistent basis. To me, the people who keep using /getglobalname every week and trying to hunt down those players are the entitled ones.

[Bionic_Flea]

7 hours ago, Bionic_Flea said:

 

Number Six gave careful readers a work around . . .

I tried the SG promotion trick on Brainstorm.  Confirmed that it no longer works to reset the days logged out timer.

[Telephone]

This has been updated on Brainstorm (and the patch notes have been updated). It didn't go out at exactly the same time as the patch because there needed to be a server configuration change.

 

• Level 1-5 characters will be flagged as inactive if they have not been played in the last 30 days.
• Level 6-49 characters will be flagged as inactive if they have not been played in the last 365 days.
• Level 50 characters will never be flagged as inactive.

[El D]

13 minutes ago, Telephone said:

This has been updated on Brainstorm (and the patch notes have been updated). It didn't go out at exactly the same time as the patch because there needed to be a server configuration change.

 

• Level 1-5 characters will be flagged as inactive if they have not been played in the last 30 days.
• Level 6-49 characters will be flagged as inactive if they have not been played in the last 365 days.
• Level 50 characters will never be flagged as inactive.

 

Initially I was surprised by the sudden jump, but I can see the logic for it. If a player makes a character and can't get past level 5 with them in 30 days with this timeframe arrangement, what's the point? That's like 30 minutes at most for a DFB that cruises you into 'play at least once a year' territory (even less if you hop onto a higher-level team). With that timeframe, it breaks up the 'required log in time' into much more manageable chunks for folks with tons of characters.

Edited July 18, 2022 by El D

[Doc_Scorpion]

16 minutes ago, El D said:

That's like 30 minutes at most for a DFB that cruises you into 'play at least once a year' territory (even less if you hop onto a higher-level team).

And if you don't want to mess with a DFB, hit the P2W vendor for a Double XP boost and do a bit of street sweeping (especially west and northwest of City Hall)...  I didn't formally time it when I tried it this morning, but it didn't take very long to hit lvl 6 with a melee character.

And given that it's more than two years since Homecoming opened to the public, the names on truly inactive 'early adopter' accounts will go available as soon as the dev team flips the switch and activates the system.

[Ironblade]

Did not see that coming.  I'm guessing that datamining showed tons of inactive characters at or near level 1.

This seems like a pretty generous policy now.  Thumbs up!

[EmperorSteele]

I dunno, I personally feel that it's too generous, especially since we're getting all this warning/heads up.

 

But, I see the good side of it, too. People won't have to stress about getting a few extra levels in the mid 20s just to keep their characters safe.

 

I kinda wish we could get some data on just how many names stand to be freed up once this goes live...

[Telephone]

There are approximately 700,000 characters in the level 1-5 bracket alone who have not logged in in the last 30 days (across all shards). Of those characters, approximately 600,000 haven't logged in in the last year. There's a significantly smaller number in the 6-49 bracket who haven't logged in in the last year but I don't have those statistics at the moment.

[BurtHutt]

19 minutes ago, Telephone said:

There are approximately 700,000 characters in the level 1-5 bracket alone who have not logged in in the last 30 days (across all shards). Of those characters, approximately 600,000 haven't logged in in the last year. There's a significantly smaller number in the 6-49 bracket who haven't logged in in the last year but I don't have those statistics at the moment.

This is a nice adjustment 🙂 

[Andreah]

Those 700,000 names won't just show up in a giant list. And a great many of them may not be very desirable names for other players. If you think a name you want is in there, after the full system is enabled you're just going to have to try it and see.

 

Further, a lot of players might take the time to log in and get them untagged shortly after the name warning policy goes into effect -- I would be interested in seeing the same statistics 30 days after it goes in. 

 

I'd also like to see how many accounts they're owned by, and how many accounts own a cumulative fifty percent share; though those might be harder to collect based on what they've shared of the data architecture.

 

Edited July 19, 2022 by Andreah

[agentx5]

40 minutes ago, Telephone said:

There are approximately 700,000 characters in the level 1-5 bracket alone who have not logged in in the last 30 days (across all shards). Of those characters, approximately 600,000 haven't logged in in the last year. There's a significantly smaller number in the 6-49 bracket who haven't logged in in the last year but I don't have those statistics at the moment.

Holy Carp!  That's a lot of names that could be freed up!  Good grief!

Edited July 19, 2022 by agentx5

[MHertz]

48 minutes ago, Telephone said:

There are approximately 700,000 characters in the level 1-5 bracket alone who have not logged in in the last 30 days (across all shards). Of those characters, approximately 600,000 haven't logged in in the last year. There's a significantly smaller number in the 6-49 bracket who haven't logged in in the last year but I don't have those statistics at the moment.

Can you put that in context for us? For instance, how does that compare to how many level 50s exist?