Any news on phase 2 of naming policy?

[UltraAlt]

23 minutes ago, Mjolnerd said:

I'm not sure how that translates to "or else don't release names at all," though.

 

I indicated that was "my input".

 

38 minutes ago, UltraAlt said:

When/if the enforcement of the policy goes live because it is so important to "free-up names", then all characters should have to be logged in at least once a year to protect that character's name. Otherwise, my input is never activate the "renaming policy".

 

In other words, "If level 50's are immune to the naming release policy, then - IN MY OPINION - no character names should be released."

[Excraft]

46 minutes ago, Mjolnerd said:

Oh, I see we're doing that instead of having a discussion.

 

Very persuasive. Surely it will win folks over to your side and convince them to take your opinions seriously.

 

I'm not here to persuade or win anyone over to anything, just as no one else is here to win me over.  I'm having a discussion and offering my personal viewpoint, just like everyone else.  If that's alright with you of course?

 

21 hours ago, GM Crumpet said:

I will say that there is a huge number of names that would potentially be released. I think Number Six said a number that was mind boggling, but are they names people would actually take? Good solid names are most likely to be level 50 characters which would never be picked. A lot of the inactive names are pretty random and aren't likely to be chosen by another player. You might be lucky and find the perfect name that has been languishing on page 9 of someones alt list for three years at level 1. I wouldn't rely on it though.

 

^ This is the point I think a lot of people are missing and why I believe this effort was a waste of time.  Seems like a lot of time spent on something that's going to offer very little, if any return in the long run.  Everyone should be prepared that level 50s are going to be added to this since there's no doubt going to be a lot of crying about names not getting released even after this goes live.

[Mjolnerd]

47 minutes ago, UltraAlt said:

 

I indicated that was "my input".

 

 

In other words, "If level 50's are immune to the naming release policy, then - IN MY OPINION - no character names should be released."

I'm familiar with the concept of opinions, thanks.

 

I'm asking you to expand on yours and explain why you feel the way you do. If level 50s are immune, WHY should no names be released at all? What does one have to do with the other?

[lemming]

My opinion:  50s should be subject as well.  A year is plenty of time and since I tend to login my chars for anniversary badges...

 

Are there some names I hope to be able to grab?  Yes

Do I expect to get them? No.

 

 

[Greycat]

2 hours ago, UltraAlt said:

 

I understand the want by some for the renaming policy.

But I will make my point again, why is a level 50 that hasn't been played for a year immune to being renamed?!

 

 

Snipped various points I agree with and others I feel are rather poor assumptions.

 

However, this is why I tend to lean more towards "Pay attention to ACCOUNT activity, not character." I'm an active player, but some of my characters don't get played a lot (they're pulled out for certain things, for instance,) so I've got to go through multiple accounts (RPer, there are reasons) and make sure everything's out of the 'danger zone.'

 

I'm told (I believe in the beta thread that this was announced in) that for some reason HC can't *track* account activity. Granted, we're not paying, there's no separate payment server that says active/inactive/renew and controls access to the game... but I find it hard to believe something *can't* see "This account hasn't been logged into in a month/a year/three years."

 

If the issue is that people rushed on to HC and reserved a bunch of names at launch and then never came back, surely the *account* would be the place to look for that and the *account* would be where you'd want the names - level 1, level 50, whatever - freed up, since those would be obviously inactive characters and accounts.  And would avoid "Hey, my RP character I pull out for an event, that doesn't need to be level 50, got renamed" for an active character while freeing up names that are - after a year or more on an inactive account - likely never being touched again, regardless of level.

[Erratic1]

2 minutes ago, Greycat said:

I'm told (I believe in the beta thread that this was announced in) that for some reason HC can't *track* account activity. Granted, we're not paying, there's no separate payment server that says active/inactive/renew and controls access to the game... but I find it hard to believe something *can't* see "This account hasn't been logged into in a month/a year/three years."

 

A proxy for a direct record of account activity would be the last time the most recently played character was active.

[Captain Fabulous]

3 hours ago, Excraft said:

You missed the point.  The argument for all of this is "use it or lose it".  Ok, well if you aren't logged in and playing your characters, then their names should be immediately available to be swiped as soon as you log off.  You aren't using them, so they should be fair game.  No need for timers.  But it's ok, I understand that it's fine to swipe a name, so long as it's the other person who loses out. 

 

Again, this should have been based on account, not character, inactivity.  Someone who's got a lot of alts but still actively playing can be messaged to negotiate for the release of a name.  If they account is inactive for years, go for it and release all the names on the account.  Better yet, take the time to code this properly so names are a combination of account-character, like Cryptic did.  It's my understanding the folks here already understand what the hurdles are with that.  Surely they are smart enough and capable enough to do that.  Fix that and this drama about name swiping nonsense becomes a non-issue. 

No one is advocating for immediate release. No one. I don't even know why you went there.

And no, not by account. If you have a character you haven't played in over a year why do you think you should be able to keep the name simply because you asked for it first? If that character and their name is sooooo important to you you should be able to at least log them in once in awhile. I mean, the bar here is VERY low.

Personally I think, like others here, that level 50s shouldn't be immune from name release. All it's gonna do is prompt name hoarders to PL all their characters to 50.

There is nothing they can do that's going to please everyone.

[MHertz]

3 hours ago, UltraAlt said:

I do not believe that someone that has a power-leveled 50 that hasn't played that character for a year feels that that character's name is important.

I agree with most of your post, but not this.

 

In general, sure. Someone hasn’t logged in a character for a year, great — flag the character name, level 50 or otherwise. How the character reached 50 is not the issue and just muddies the water here.

[Greycat]

8 minutes ago, Captain Fabulous said:

And no, not by account. If you have a character you haven't played in over a year why do you think you should be able to keep the name simply because you asked for it first? If that character and their name is sooooo important to you you should be able to at least log them in once in awhile. I mean, the bar here is VERY low.

Personally I think, like others here, that level 50s shouldn't be immune from name release. All it's gonna do is prompt name hoarders to PL all their characters to 50.

 

If the question is "inactivity means release the name," and you don't think 50s should make a difference, you should absolutely be saying "yes, by account."

 

An active *player,* regardless of how active an individual character on their account is, should have precedence over someone who went "ooh, it's back, shiny" and played for two months several years ago, never to return, no matter *how* many 50s are on that obviously inactive account or how they got there.

[Captain Fabulous]

6 minutes ago, MHertz said:

I agree with most of your post, but not this.

 

In general, sure. Someone hasn’t logged in a character for a year, great — flag the character name, level 50 or otherwise. How the character reached 50 is not the issue and just muddies the water here.

I'm kind on the fence on this. I mean, I don't see the devs ever going down the road of "we'll exempt played level 50 but not PLd level 50s", but I'm not sure I'm necessarily against the idea. I know play time data is logged, and I guess one could establish a threshold for what would be considered a PLd character (1-50 in under X number of hours) but I'm not sure play time data is easily accessible nor if it's a needed solution to what is really a narrow set of circumstances.

[Captain Fabulous]

3 minutes ago, Greycat said:

 

If the question is "inactivity means release the name," and you don't think 50s should make a difference, you should absolutely be saying "yes, by account."

 

An active *player,* regardless of how active an individual character on their account is, should have precedence over someone who went "ooh, it's back, shiny" and played for two months several years ago, never to return, no matter *how* many 50s are on that obviously inactive account or how they got there.

I disagree. It's not about whether a player is active or not. It's about characters, as those are the things that hold names. If you're an active player you shouldn't have any issues taking the time to at least log in a character whose name is flagged for release. I mean, it's not complicated nor difficult. It literally takes under a minute per character. The only time it becomes complicated or difficult is if you're someone who's camping on hundreds (or even thousands) of names and have no any intention of ever actually playing any of them. If you have characters you haven't played in over a year they obviously aren't all that important to you. So why do you care that the name might be taken from characters you don't care about and never play? I really do not understand this mentality.

[Erratic1]

22 minutes ago, MHertz said:

I agree with most of your post, but not this.

 

In general, sure. Someone hasn’t logged in a character for a year, great — flag the character name, level 50 or otherwise. How the character reached 50 is not the issue and just muddies the water here.

 

My first character on Homecoming, my first 50 on Homecoming, the holder of my global name, and the leader of my supergroup is a level 50 I no longer play. She's okay, not great. Love the bio I gave her, and she and the bio are shown off in the multimedia section. But like I said, I no longer play her.

 

Are you really that much better off that I log her in once per year just to avoid losing her name?

 

[Greycat]

9 minutes ago, Captain Fabulous said:

I'm kind on the fence on this. I mean, I don't see the devs ever going down the road of "we'll exempt played level 50 but not PLd level 50s", but I'm not sure I'm necessarily against the idea. I know play time data is logged, and I guess one could establish a threshold for what would be considered a PLd character (1-50 in under X number of hours) but I'm not sure play time data is easily accessible nor if it's a needed solution to what is really a narrow set of circumstances.

 

Played time - even that recorded in game - can be wildly inaccurate.

 

I don't know of anyone who's had *less* time than they played showing - especially with leveling pacts no longer being a thing - but more is definitely a thing. The example I've given in the past is running a "shield squad" with three friends of mine. We only were on at the same time, to run these as a group. Average time played to 50 on the other three (we checked when we hit 50) for them? 80-ish hours. Mine showed over 300, and I certainly wasn't on that character nearly four times longer than them.

 

1 minute ago, Captain Fabulous said:

I disagree. It's not about whether a player is active or not. It's about characters, as those are the things that hold names. If you're an active player you shouldn't have any issues taking the time to at least log in a character whose name is flagged for release. I mean, it's not complicated nor difficult. It literally takes under a minute per character. The only time it becomes complicated or difficult is if you're someone who's camping on hundreds (or even thousands) of names and have no any intention of ever actually playing any of them. If you have characters you haven't played in over a year they obviously aren't all that important to you. So why do you care that the name might be taken from characters you don't care about and never play? I really do not understand this mentality.

 

And *characters* are tied to *player* - or account.

 

So instead of guessing about why I may not have played a specific character on my *obviously active* account and risking annoying a player who's invested into Homecoming (no, I don't mean monetarily, just to cut that argument off,) deal with the accounts of people who haven't been here in years and who most *certainly* aren't interested in keeping the names they grabbed years ago.

 

Don't *assume* a character I'm not on every day, week, or month isn't important to me. Or that I'm just "sitting on the name." I am an active player.  Deal with the ones that most *certainly* aren't interested because they haven't been in the game in *any* way, shape or form for over a year. There's *zero* reason for those to be reserved, regardless of level.

[Erratic1]

15 minutes ago, Captain Fabulous said:

I disagree. It's not about whether a player is active or not. It's about characters, as those are the things that hold names. If you're an active player you shouldn't have any issues taking the time to at least log in a character whose name is flagged for release. 

 

My most recent 50 is a character I made the day after Christmas who hit 50 Sunday before last. He is my 18th character to hit 50. Not a great number but then I take breaks from the game, do not play are often as some, and tend to play multiple characters in a span of time instead of just focusing on one. Since he was created I have probably made a half-dozen other characters and given them some amount of play time including a couple which are in their 40s. Point here being that it really would not be implausible for me to have 1-2 50s per month if I  focused and did not take breaks from the game. 

 

Let's say I had done that since launch. At four years that would be 72-144 50s. 

 

What is your need that I have logged into those characters annually to retain their names? Why is not my ongoing participation in the play of the game sufficient?

Edited February 21, 2023 by Erratic1

[Erratic1]

3 minutes ago, Greycat said:

 

Played time - even that recorded in game - can be wildly inaccurate.

 

I don't know of anyone who's had *less* time than they played showing - especially with leveling pacts no longer being a thing - but more is definitely a thing. The example I've given in the past is running a "shield squad" with three friends of mine. We only were on at the same time, to run these as a group. Average time played to 50 on the other three (we checked when we hit 50) for them? 80-ish hours. Mine showed over 300, and I certainly wasn't on that character nearly four times longer than them.

 

Moreover, you do not get logged out of the game if you are standing in a supergroup base short of the server resetting. Go to your base, get a phone call from a friend about doing dinner. Dash off to meet them then return 3 hours later and your character will remain logged in and have 3 more hours of play without you doing anything.

 

Time active is a dubious metric.

[Captain Fabulous]

4 minutes ago, Erratic1 said:

 

My first character on Homecoming, my first 50 on Homecoming, the holder of my global name, and the leader of my supergroup is a level 50 I no longer play. She's okay, not great. Love the bio I gave her, and she and the bio are shown off in the multimedia section. But like I said, I no longer play her.

 

Are you really that much better off that I log her in once per year just to avoid losing her name?

 

And I'll counter this with: if you never ever play them why do you care what their name is? It won't change your global name, it won't change your SG status. And it won't rewrite the bio no one gets to see because they're never logged in. Are you somehow better off in any appreciable way by holding onto this name? Like, why would you want to deny someone else the pleasure of using a name you admittedly don't ever use? I don't get it.

[Erratic1]

Just now, Captain Fabulous said:

And I'll counter this with: if you never ever play them why do you care what their name is? It won't change your global name, it won't change your SG status. And it won't rewrite the bio no one gets to see because they're never logged in. Are you somehow better off in any appreciable way by holding onto this name? Like, why would you want to deny someone else the pleasure of using a name you admittedly don't ever use? I don't get it.

 

I told you why I care.  Did you not read my post?

 

Quote

My first character on Homecoming, my first 50 on Homecoming, the holder of my global name, and the leader of my supergroup is a level 50 I no longer play.

 

[Captain Fabulous]

6 minutes ago, Erratic1 said:

 

My most recent 50 is a character I made the day after Christmas who hit 50 Sunday before last. He is my 18th character to hit 50. Not a great number but then I take breaks from the game, do not play are often as some, and tend to play multiple characters in a span of time instead of just focusing on one. Since he was created I have probably made a half-dozen other characters and given them some amount of play time including a couple which are in their 40s. Point here being that it really would not be implausible for me to have 1-2 50s per month if I  focused and did not take breaks from the game. 

 

Let's say I had done that since launch. At four years that would be 48-96 50s. 

 

What is your need that I have logged into those characters annually to retain their names? Why is not my ongoing participation in the play of the game sufficient?

Because as I stated previously, it's not about whether your account is in use. It's about the characters. Why do you think you should be able to indefinitely hold a name on a character you don't ever play? Asking you to log in a character at least once a year isn't much of an ask. If you can't spare under a minute that character clearly isn't that important to you.

[Erratic1]

I have a good friend, great guy, who, with no insult intended, tends more towards, "bright shiney" in his approach to games--he gets into them, plays for a while, then is off to the next thing. When he heard City of Heroes was back, he came back, brought his wife, played for about four months, and was off to the next thing. That was at release.

 

He's not coming back. And if he does, his character names being lost would be an incredibly rare disappointment (there is one which is based off his last name, which is also a good name to work into any character with a particular theme of power) which would not disuade him. But in all honesty, he is not coming back.

 

Dropping the names of characters on inactive accounts if a very different beast from dropping names from those stilll playing the game. 

 

Doubt me? Who is here telling you that? Me or my friend?

[Captain Fabulous]

2 minutes ago, Erratic1 said:

 

I told you why I care.  Did you not read my post?

 

 

I did and you didn't. Neither did you explain how it would negatively affect your enjoyment of the game if the name of a character you never ever play was taken away from you.

[Greycat]

3 minutes ago, Captain Fabulous said:

And I'll counter this with: if you never ever play them why do you care what their name is?

 

Because it is part of a *CHARACTER* the ACTIVE PLAYER cares about.  Even without your housekeeping metrics. Yes, some people see characters as just a bunch of stats and don't care what their name is as long as they can melt a pylon in 5 seconds. Others don't.

 

Why is this so difficult for you to grasp? Why do you keep wanting to insist that the characters *active players* care about, they actually "don't," *despite being told to the contrary?*

 

If the *player* is active, they shouldn't have to deal with this, period. If the concern is "people who don't care about the characters are sitting on ALL THESE NAMES," then deal with the players that obviously *don't* care by any metric - as shown by *not even logging into their accounts* for over a year.

[Erratic1]

3 minutes ago, Captain Fabulous said:

Because as I stated previously, it's not about whether your account is in use. It's about the characters. Why do you think you should be able to indefinitely hold a name on a character you don't ever play? Asking you to log in a character at least once a year isn't much of an ask. If you can't spare under a minute that character clearly isn't that important to you.

 

No. You may not care. Greycat, I, and you don't know how many others do care and we are telling you we care.

 

Now, why do  you think your opinion on -=OUR=- characters carry greater weight than -=OUR=- opinions?

[Captain Fabulous]

2 minutes ago, Erratic1 said:

Dropping the names of characters on inactive accounts if a very different beast from dropping names from those stilll playing the game. 

 

And on this we will forever disagree. Look, I get where you're coming from. But I simply do not agree with you, for all the reasons I've already outlined. I'm gonna leave it at that.

[Erratic1]

1 minute ago, Captain Fabulous said:

I did and you didn't. Neither did you explain how it would negatively affect your enjoyment of the game if the name of a character you never ever play was taken away from you.

 

I did not read my own post is what you're saying? Anyone who is not willfully obtuse can see the import of the character to me but even for those so socially challenged they cannot, my telling you it is important to me is all that matters in determining that it is.

 

Get back to me when you are not just objecting to be objectionable.

[Captain Fabulous]

3 minutes ago, Greycat said:

 

Because it is part of a *CHARACTER* the ACTIVE PLAYER cares about.  Even without your housekeeping metrics. Yes, some people see characters as just a bunch of stats and don't care what their name is as long as they can melt a pylon in 5 seconds. Others don't.

 

Why is this so difficult for you to grasp? Why do you keep wanting to insist that the characters *active players* care about, they actually "don't," *despite being told to the contrary?*

 

If the *player* is active, they shouldn't have to deal with this, period. If the concern is "people who don't care about the characters are sitting on ALL THESE NAMES," then deal with the players that obviously *don't* care by any metric - as shown by *not even logging into their accounts* for over a year.

Help me out here: why do you care about a character you don't ever play? You care SO MUCH about these characters you never ever play them, and are willing to die on this hill over a policy that *might* one day take their names, but can't be half-assed to at least log them in once a year. And what makes you think name hoarders don't actively play at least one of their characters while sitting on hundreds of characters at level 1?

Make it make sense.

This horse has been beaten to death and I'm tired of repeating myself.