What is up with all the names?

[UltraAlt]

On 7/22/2022 at 11:07 AM, dtjunkie said:

Just curious if these would be okay, or if they are violations of the policy.

 

I had a character before the Sunset called HeWhoShallNotBeNamed that had costumes that roughly (but not exactly) looked like Mon-El, The Thing, Doc Samson, and some others that I don't recall at the moment. I never mentioned any of the characters in the bio.

I never ran into any issues, but character jump and costume change to much that I don't know if anyone ever realized about the costumes.

 

I admit that I have at least one character like this currently, so I'm interested in hearing from the DEVs as well.

[Doc_Scorpion]

On 8/8/2022 at 6:41 PM, srmalloy said:

Reading that, I had a quick flash of a minimum-height MA/SR Scrapper, 'Odori Ebi'... just to see how long it takes people to get the joke. The farthest I've gone for a deliberately obscure character name, though, is Xiao Guo, an Earth/Storm Controller, whose name is a multi-level indirection.

I got half of it even as I read it...  But then I'm something of a Japanophile.  Had to look up the other half.

[PLVRIZR]

SWMPTHNG got genericized, just Tuesday night.  After almost a year of play (to VL 9) and a spectacular Tanker Tuesday event on Torch.  He lived on Excelsior, prior to that, so that may have had something to do with it.  What I find interesting is that my entire concept was discussed, on the Tanker forum (complete with pictures of the costume) and it didn't raise an eyebrow.

 

 

No hard feelings, GM Torch, I just find it odd.  I left the plant accoutrements off his re-costume (shot below) and renamed him "SWMPCRTUR", so I hope he no longer violates the infringement policy.  Having said that, Tuesday night reminded me of just how g-damned slow Rad Melee is, so I probably will be leaving him shelved, until Numina comes back around as a WST (last TF for TFC)...😆

 

Edited August 11, 2022 by PLVRIZR
reworded

[BastionWalls]

On 8/9/2022 at 1:02 PM, UltraAlt said:

 

The difference is pretty simple.

 

Hulk, Incredible Hulk. Huik (the i looks like a lowercase L ingame by default), etc. would be copyright infringement ... especially if your character has green skin and you were torn purple pants.

 

A Homage would be Rampage, Angry Radioativeman, etc. with purple skin and green torn pants.

 

 

But it really isn't that simple finding where the line is. Let's take your example of Rampage, is he still ok if he was green skin and orange pants? If he was green/purple but a skinny 4' tall character? If he was just gender-swapped? (ok, last one was not a great example as we already have She-Hulk). It is just comes down to if someone sees your character, "feels" it could be a problem, decides to report it, and a GM agrees. I want to be clear that I absolutely understand and agree with the policy, but there is a lot of enjoyment to be had in coming up with "homage" characters and seeing how creative you can get in bringing them to life without crossing the line. But if you have no idea where the line is, it is definitely more difficult.

[PLVRIZR]

1 hour ago, BastionWalls said:

 I want to be clear that I absolutely understand and agree with the policy, but there is a lot of enjoyment to be had in coming up with "homage" characters and seeing how creative you can get in bringing them to life without crossing the line. But if you have no idea where the line is, it is definitely more difficult.

^---this

 

Again, I totally understand the policy, but with my very personal experience (enjoyment of discussing and creating the "homage" character...on the forums), it came as a surprise, for sure.

[UltraAlt]

1 hour ago, BastionWalls said:

But it really isn't that simple finding where the line is.

 

It is.

You are intentionally trying to complicate what I said.

 

What I wrote is pretty direct.

 

Tweaking what I said and saying that is what I said isn't what I said.

 

I set-up pretty clear safety zone for you. If you want to go into the gray zones that's on you. I never suggested you go there to test your luck.

 

 

1 hour ago, BastionWalls said:

It is just comes down to if someone sees your character, "feels" it could be a problem, decides to report it, and a GM agrees.

 

It all comes down to if someone is following the Code of Conduct and report it when other people are breaking the Code of Conduct.

It's not a matter of feeling in most of the situations, it's blatant.

 

It could be very well that someone hasn't read the Code of Conduct and think it is acceptable.

 

Do you enjoy playing City of Heroes?

Then help protect it by reporting copyright infringement that might mean that the game is taken away from all of us again.

 

1 hour ago, BastionWalls said:

there is a lot of enjoyment to be had in coming up with "homage" characters and seeing how creative you can get in bringing them to life without crossing the line. But if you have no idea where the line is, it is definitely more difficult.

 

The last post on the first page of this thread written by GM Impervium addresses this.

I can't seem to get the quote directly into this post, so I just copied the most relevant part it, pasted it, and put "" around it (colorize it, bolded and italicized some stuff

"...We don't have strict, precise guidelines, only because people would toe the line on purpose just to be annoying. And the GM staff needs to be free make judgement calls on these things. We've seen enough uninspired copycats and delightful homages to tell the difference by this point..."

 

 

[DoctorDitko]

Since parody and homage depend on the doctrine of "Fair Use," they really can't be codified. Fair Use itself cannot be codified.

It's literally an "I'll know it when I see it" standard in copyright law.

 

The EFF has an introduction to the subject. The Wikipedia article goes into more detail.

 

DMCA takedowns, which are rampant on Youtube, are often wielded without the due diligence specified in the law, which requires claimants to carefully consider the Fair Use exemption before filing. Unfortunately, the default seems to be to take the video down, and rely on the creator to defend it before it can be restored.

 

If some IP owner files against Homecoming, we might be in a similar situation. Unlikely, yes, but that's why they have to be careful (not to mention the walking-on-eggshells complication of being an unauthorized server).

 

So, we should probably be more vigilant than we were on Live, since NCsoft's reaction to a DMCA takedown would be to destroy the offending server. The number of eyes on us is undoubtedly fewer, fortunately.

 

But I'm working on a new profile pic, just in case.

 

Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer. I am not a doctor. I am not a cheese sandwich.

 

 

[BastionWalls]

@UltraAlt, it was never my intention to complicate what you had said and I apologize if I came across as combative. My point was that your easy to understand line obviously wouldn't be everyone's line. GM Impervium's quote confirms that as there is no line (again, understandably) the entire character creation is a "gray area" I cannot and am not speaking for you or anyone else, but I believe that all of us came to this game from a love of the sources (comics/movies/anime/etc) and we have all at some point created characters inspired by those sources. I absolutely agree that your examples are correct, but unfortunately, there is a wide variety of options between those 2 examples and therein lies the challenge. As I said in my original post, it is more of a "I'll know it when I see it" rule which can feel uncomfortable as none of us have the same field of reference. To take @PLVRIZR's example above, he had a character that for over a year was not reported or seen by a GM who found it violated the rules. Ultimately it is the GM's call whether to genericize a character, which is how it should be. My question originally was are there any guidelines to what is or is not allowed, and the answer is no and that is ok. It's not the answer I wanted, but it is the answer I can accept.

[PLVRIZR]

On 8/13/2022 at 11:04 AM, BastionWalls said:

 My question originally was are there any guidelines to what is or is not allowed, and the answer is no and that is ok. It's not the answer I wanted, but it is the answer I can accept.

 

Which perfectly summarizes the issue.  I am also OK with it.  I just love this damned game 😁

Edited August 14, 2022 by PLVRIZR

[UltraAlt]

20 hours ago, BastionWalls said:

My point was that your easy to understand line obviously wouldn't be everyone's line.

 

You are correct, but what I said and my examples are pretty much no where near the DEVs line for genericking a character.

I made my examples intentionally to show what I'm pretty sure is acceptable.

 

21 hours ago, BastionWalls said:

My point was that your easy to understand line obviously wouldn't be everyone's line. GM Impervium's quote confirms that as there is no line (again, understandably) the entire character creation is a "gray area"

 

No. That isn't what GM Impervium said. Here is the GMs relevant point to this "We've seen enough uninspired copycats and delightful homages to tell the difference by this point..."

There is a grey area between uninspired copycats and a delightful homage. But "uninspired copycats" pretty much makes it clear.

Use the same name (spelled one way or another) with a similar or same outfit as a known comic book character, and you are for sure a copycat. It's blatant.

 

I'm laughing that the "entire character creation" is a gray area. There is a huge amount of room for creativity with the character creator.

Only the lazy have to copycat. And probably too lazy to read the CoC.

But I understand that some people find it hard to find "good" names.

 

21 hours ago, BastionWalls said:

we have all at some point created characters inspired by those sources.

 

Inspired by is one thing. Blatant copying is the issue.

 

We are back to (lowercase L)ncredi(uppercase i)e Hu(capital i)k wearing shredded purple pants and green skin on a monstrous body mutant tanker.

It's pretty obvious what is blatant.

There is a gray area, but blatant is blatant.

It isn't just that it is blatant, but it's blatantly and intentionally breaking the rules intentionally to be blatant about copyright infringement and blatant about doing what you had to in order to break the rules.

 

21 hours ago, BastionWalls said:

none of us have the same field of reference.

 

I feel that I do. I think a lot of players do. I think most of the old school players do.

I'm sorry that you feel insecure about it.

 

21 hours ago, BastionWalls said:

he had a character that for over a year was not reported or seen by a GM who found it violated the rules.

 

It doesn't matter how long someone gets away with breaking the rules.

Getting away with breaking the rules for a long time doesn't mean you haven't broken the rules, it simply means that you haven't been caught and seen your day before the GMs/DEVs yet for breaking the rules.

His example could have been caught at any point.

This thread had put a highlight on the issue, so we can only expect in light of this thread that some people are going to be reporting more frequently as the importance has been pointed out for all of us to do so in order to protect our favorite game. It has also brought it to the GMs and DEVs attention, and they are being more vigilant about watching out for "copycat" behavior.

 

21 hours ago, BastionWalls said:

My question originally was are there any guidelines to what is or is not allowed

 

Making up your own character ideas is alway okay.

 

"Delightful Homages" are okay.

 

Blatant copyright infringement isn't okay.

Using a workaround to get a name that is copyright infringement isn't okay.

 

There is a gray area, but I think it pretty easy to avoid the gray area if you use a little creativity.

You have to be moving toward that area intentionally in order to get into it.

If you are worried about stumbling into it, then tweak somethings to be different and you're going to be okay. Still worried . Tweak some more.

[ivanhedgehog]

On 7/20/2022 at 1:17 PM, Oubliette_Red said:

 

I'm fairly certain that the Karen Badge belongs to the ones that show up in the forums throwing a hissy fit after their character's get gen'd.

 

It is fun to watch one get genericed in realtime

[ivanhedgehog]

On 8/13/2022 at 8:19 AM, UltraAlt said:

 

It is.

You are intentionally trying to complicate what I said.

 

What I wrote is pretty direct.

 

Tweaking what I said and saying that is what I said isn't what I said.

 

I set-up pretty clear safety zone for you. If you want to go into the gray zones that's on you. I never suggested you go there to test your luck.

 

 

 

It all comes down to if someone is following the Code of Conduct and report it when other people are breaking the Code of Conduct.

It's not a matter of feeling in most of the situations, it's blatant.

 

It could be very well that someone hasn't read the Code of Conduct and think it is acceptable.

 

Do you enjoy playing City of Heroes?

Then help protect it by reporting copyright infringement that might mean that the game is taken away from all of us again.

 

 

The last post on the first page of this thread written by GM Impervium addresses this.

I can't seem to get the quote directly into this post, so I just copied the most relevant part it, pasted it, and put "" around it (colorize it, bolded and italicized some stuff

"...We don't have strict, precise guidelines, only because people would toe the line on purpose just to be annoying. And the GM staff needs to be free make judgement calls on these things. We've seen enough uninspired copycats and delightful homages to tell the difference by this point..."

 

 

The gm's put a lot of thought into this. they arent just making snap judgements. I have been on both sides of the judgement results and I for one think they do an excellent job.

[Ukase]

On 8/8/2022 at 8:06 AM, Marshal_General said:

Sorry, but under the rules of the Mole Protection Act, the term wackamole has been deemed offensive to moles and further more shall not be used under the terms of the afore mentioned Act.

I recall a most peculiar fellow back on live, who was a perfect level 46 for back in the day, when we needed a "bridge" for sidekicks to get the maximum XP. 
His name: Naked Mole Rat. While I'm not sure what a naked mole rat looks like, his avatar was quite pink and he did look like he could be naked, or at least without fur. 

[biostem]

On 8/13/2022 at 12:04 PM, BastionWalls said:

My question originally was are there any guidelines to what is or is not allowed, and the answer is no and that is ok.

There's going to be a need for vagueness due to differences in perception or how the game may change over time.  For instance, let's say the rule was you couldn't do 2 of the following: name, costume, powers.  What you might end up with is someone making a SS/invuln brute named "Hulk", except they have blue shorts instead of purple ones.   Now they can argue that they didn't copy the costume, so they're good.  I'm not a fan of the uncertainty, but it also seems most folks don't run up against this problem...

[Grouchybeast]

1 hour ago, Ukase said:

His name: Naked Mole Rat. While I'm not sure what a naked mole rat looks like, his avatar was quite pink and he did look like he could be naked, or at least without fur. 

 

It looks like this:

 

[DoctorDitko]

Thumbs-up to Inspired Mole Rats!

[PsiBug]

18 hours ago, Grouchybeast said:

 

It looks like this:

 

 

NSFW!

[Ironblade]

Here's a much cooler looking naked mole rat.  This is Rufus from the 'Kim Possible' cartoon.

[Grouchybeast]

1 hour ago, Ironblade said:

Here's a much cooler looking naked mole rat.

 

Hmm.  That just makes it look like a pink otter, which I feel is selling the naked mole rat short when naked mole rats are incredibly cool already.  For example, they're one of only two truly eusocial mammal species.  Their unique beauty should be embraced.

[Herotu]

On 8/9/2022 at 5:50 PM, Snarky said:

Reminds me of an old gaming group.  Anytime someone mentioned “crazy as a shithouse rat” the shithouse rat anti defamation league sprang into action

And not before time. Shithouse rats have been under-represented because they got no dough, though, innit bro?

[smnolimits41]

hmmm... you've got me wondering, are any characters, not in some way based off characters that already exist.  The most comon one i've seen and yes i've created one, but deleted it, and thats Superman.  

[UltraAlt]

1 hour ago, smnolimits41 said:

hmmm... you've got me wondering, are any characters, not in some way based off characters that already exist.  The most comon one i've seen and yes i've created one, but deleted it, and thats Superman. 

 

Does history repeat itself?

Are there only 7 story plots?

To some extent yes.

 

Is Superman like Samson and Moses?

To some extent, but neither of them could fly, wear a cape, work at the Daily Planet, live in Metropolis, etc.

 

Some say that there is nothing new under the sun, but there are plenty of permutations of things.

Not everyone that has a cape, super strength, invulnerability and can fly are Superman.

 

I think if you read through the thread you will find quite clearly that it is discussing copycats and not variations of the super genre (which is what the game is about - the "superhero genre").

 

Not all superheroes wear masks and/or capes.

There are general types of powers and modes of transport that superheroes use, and the game tries to provide those as options.

 

I see far more Hulk-copycats then I do of any other know characters to be honest.

You have to go over to DCUO to see a ton of Superman copycats. You can't throw a Joker bouncy-ball without hitting one, but, of course, the same goes for practically every type of copyright infringement over there, but this isn't DCUO.

 

Edited August 24, 2022 by UltraAlt
cleaning up wording

[Zhym]

On 7/20/2022 at 11:18 PM, GM Impervium said:

 

Well, the GMs monitor this stuff, so the Devs are free to make content for everyone to play 😃

As for the rest of your comment? I'd hate to say it, but, it essentially comes down to "I know it when I see it". We don't have strict, precise guidelines, only because people would toe the line on purpose just to be annoying. And the GM staff needs to be free make judgement calls on these things. We've seen enough uninspired copycats and delightful homages to tell the difference by this point.

I'm not a GM, but my hope is that part of what the GMs are looking for is whether the character shows any creativity.    @dtjunkie's Hammer Corps and Lords of Rock, for example?  Those are awesome, fun, clever character concepts, and any system that found them infringing would be horribly broken, IMO.  They're off the chart on the creativity scale and only minimally affect (or reflect) copyrighted characters or actual people. 

The gold standard for Superman homage/parody, IMO, is Tsooperman.  It's been a while since I've seen him in the game, but it's a brilliant mashup of the Superman character and the Tsoo.  Is it technically derivative of Superman?  Absolutely.  But there's enough creativity there that I have a hard time seeing any reasonable GM saying, "Nope!  Copyrighted!"

I have a character called Splendidman.  He's an Inv/SS tanker who can fly, has super speed, laser eyes, and frost breath.  One of his costumes—the first one I made, I admit, but which I now only bring out for special occasions or when I'm soloing in maps—would look very familiar.  Most of his costumes now aren't quite such blatant rip-offs of the original, though.  Here's his current look and description:

 

 

Infringing?  I really hope not.  I've managed to get him to 50 and run him in a bunch of iTrials without a problem.  I think there's enough creativity there to turn him from "copy" to "fair use homage/parody," but of course, I would, wouldn't I?

 

But if I made a character named 5uperman, put him in a Superman costume, and gave him Superman powers?  Or made a claws/regen scrapper named WoIverine (with a upper-case i instead of a lower-case l)?*  Clearly infringing, and I suspect that if I could even pick that name, the character wouldn't last past the first time someone felt like reporting it.  

 

*BTW: don't do this.  Claws/regen kind of sucks.  Mostly the /regen part.

 

I also suspect that the further you get from a copyrighted superhero character, the better—at least partly because turning a non-superhero into a superhero shows that creativity I'm talking about.  So maybe non-superhero literary characters or real people would be more likely to fly (as it were) than properties that DC or Marvel would be likely to sue over.  As long as it's done in taste. (Would "Evil Undead Mister Rogers", an axe-wielding zombie in a cardigan and tennis shoes, survive being reported?   I don't know...but suddenly I kind of want to make the character and find out.)

 

The wacky thing about copyright law is that it's really hard to tell what's fair use and what isn't until a court tells you (after very expensive litigation). So I do get why Homecoming would err on the side of caution.  But whether it's because most players aren't prone to reporting every "infringing" character they see, or because the GMs are pretty good about distinguishing blatant copies from homage and parody, it doesn't seem like HC has a heavy hand about this—which, as someone who likes to play "homage" characters, I appreciate.

Edited August 24, 2022 by Zhym

[Xevix]

Thanks for the love Zhym! I approve of this thread.

 

[PLVRIZR]

1 minute ago, Xevix said:

Thanks for the love Zhym! I approve of this thread.

 

 

🤣 That's great!  I envisioned him also wearing a Sorcerer's straw hat, too (or "Tsoo").