Nice costume! (too bad it won't be around long)

[MrAxe]

SHOULDHAvegonewithproffessorweird,

[ivanhedgehog]

14 hours ago, Oubliette_Red said:

 

Let us not forget the lack of capitalization.

 

or is it to, too or two?

[Sykar]

That was an awesome costume. He did well capturing Dr. Strange even if it is not allowed. A shame but understandable that the devs do not want to get into trouble with Marvel.

[GM Crumpet]

Without going into particulars, some IP characters are ridiculously easy to copy with our costume creator. X-Men characters are a good example, and I've seen no end of Deadpools. And One Punch Man. I understand the urge to recreate and play your favourites, but as everyone is aware we take it seriously and will generic offenders without fear or favour. "But <insert game here> allows me to do it" isn't an excuse. Our sandbox, our rules. Nobody is forced to play on Homecoming, there are other servers out there who may have different rules. I don't know, I haven't looked into them in any detail. Many IP holders are zero tolerance and are well known to vigorously defend their IP's. The last thing we want is a bored House of Mouse lawyer taking an interest (as an example).

 

The laws on copyright and trademark and protected IP's is clear and robust. We just try as much as we can to keep on the right side of the law, that's all.

[Player2]

5 hours ago, GM Crumpet said:

The laws on copyright and trademark and protected IP's is clear and robust.

 

..also unforgiving.

[Snarky]

25 minutes ago, Player2 said:

..also unforgiving.

[Captain Fabulous]

Ran into a blatant clone last night. Kindly let him know via PM that creating copyrighted characters was against the rules and he needed to change his costume before someone reports him.

And that someone was me. 😂

No idea if he actually changed the costume/name or not. I lost track of him. But no doubt he's gonna log back in to GenericHero239482 if he didn't.

[GM Crumpet]

12 hours ago, Captain Fabulous said:

Ran into a blatant clone last night. Kindly let him know via PM that creating copyrighted characters was against the rules and he needed to change his costume before someone reports him.

And that someone was me. 😂

No idea if he actually changed the costume/name or not. I lost track of him. But no doubt he's gonna log back in to GenericHero239482 if he didn't.

It's also helpful if you can grab a screenshot of the costume. Sometimes that can be the tipping point between generic and not generic. Words are common and many published hero's are simple word combinations that anyone can have. If the costume and bio are utterly different it can mean the difference between walking around freely and being thrown naked into the street

[Without_Pause]

I've seen a few 'Not really Hulks' running around as of late. What I don't get is Hulk's look isn't really all that great. I can make a Hulk type character and make them look far better, but here we go 'green skinned guy in pants #over 9000!'

[Scarlet Shocker]

Can I get a serious point of clarification: If I were to create an original character who accidentally resembled an existing comicbook character what would the  outcome be if it was reported? (in other words, I'm not trying to rip any IP off but the costume might be said to look similar)

[srmalloy]

It's a multiple-hit judgement on the part of the HC staff - does the character's outfit match (within the limits of the character creator) that of a copyrighted character, do the character's powers replicate those of the coprighted character, does the character's name match that of the copyrighted character... The more hits you have, the likelier you are to get generic'ed. A green-skinned Inv/SS Brute named 'Smash' is likely okay; calling him 'the Incredible Bulk' is tapdancing around the edge. An EA/Fire Brute with the same appearance could be called 'the Incredible Hulk' and be okay, although that's skating a bit close. Make him a Fire/Inv Sentinel, and you're safe.

 

If it's just the costume, or even costume and powers with a different name and backstory, you should be fine.

[Luminara]

2 hours ago, Scarlet Shocker said:

Can I get a serious point of clarification: If I were to create an original character who accidentally resembled an existing comicbook character what would the  outcome be if it was reported? (in other words, I'm not trying to rip any IP off but the costume might be said to look similar)

 

"I injected Granny Smith apples with a growth serum and ate it, and now I look like Shrek!" is fine.

 

"I was caught in a nuclear explosion that turned me into a giant dude with anger management issues, but I'm taupe and sparkle like @Snarky when he's playing baseball!" is fine.

 

"HULK SMASH!" with a giant green dude is not fine.

[TheZag]

The team makes judgment calls on this on a frequent basis,  i assume.  There are ways that a character would be allowed from a strictly legal standpoint that the team here may drop the generic hammer on.  Changing the costume a bit is helpful and not having the name is a big help.  Write a bio for your character is probably the biggest help for keeping your character from getting generic'd,  especially to show a different origin story or if you use parody since parody is allowed under the laws.  Make it obvious parody though - I have a character who's bio is he did 99 pushups,  99 situps,  and a 9.5k run and almost became super.  The name is also parody with the costume adjusted as well.

 

 

Edited August 7, 2023 by TheZag

[Snarky]

this is fine.  it is parody.  be creative and do parody.  DO NOT run Wolverine straight up with the name Wolver!ne and expect it to fly

 

um....but do not do batmanuel.  that would now be copying...

Edited August 7, 2023 by Snarky

[Captain Fabulous]

5 hours ago, Luminara said:

sparkle like @Snarky when he's playing baseball

He does have a lovely sparkle, doesn't he?

[Captain Fabulous]

11 hours ago, GM Crumpet said:

It's also helpful if you can grab a screenshot of the costume. Sometimes that can be the tipping point between generic and not generic. Words are common and many published hero's are simple word combinations that anyone can have. If the costume and bio are utterly different it can mean the difference between walking around freely and being thrown naked into the street

What do we do with the screenshot? Is there a way to attach it to an in-game report? Or should we use some other method to report?

[Raikao]

On 8/6/2023 at 1:35 PM, GM Crumpet said:

Without going into particulars, some IP characters are ridiculously easy to copy with our costume creator. X-Men characters are a good example, and I've seen no end of Deadpools. And One Punch Man. I understand the urge to recreate and play your favourites, but as everyone is aware we take it seriously and will generic offenders without fear or favour. "But <insert game here> allows me to do it" isn't an excuse. Our sandbox, our rules. Nobody is forced to play on Homecoming, there are other servers out there who may have different rules. I don't know, I haven't looked into them in any detail. Many IP holders are zero tolerance and are well known to vigorously defend their IP's. The last thing we want is a bored House of Mouse lawyer taking an interest (as an example).

 

The laws on copyright and trademark and protected IP's is clear and robust. We just try as much as we can to keep on the right side of the law, that's all.

 

On a more positiv note: It's also very easy to create demonic-possessed Elfs that you ran for a year+ in DnD campaigns.

 

What I don't get is why someone wants to copy character XYZ instead of just making their own "totally not a knock-off" character that's just based on the powerset.

 

Like that guy said he wanted to speficially play Dr. Strange. Well he can. Just call the character something unique and use a different color palette and clothing theme. You can still have the same powerset and abilities. But now you're Prof. Anomaly, who has a robot arm. I dunno get creative.

[Snarky]

4 minutes ago, Raikao said:

 

On a more positiv note: It's also very easy to create demonic-possessed Elfs that you ran for a year+ in DnD campaigns.

 

What I don't get is why someone wants to copy character XYZ instead of just making their own "totally not a knock-off" character that's just based on the powerset.

 

Like that guy said he wanted to speficially play Dr. Strange. Well he can. Just call the character something unique and use a different color palette and clothing theme. You can still have the same powerset and abilities. But now you're Prof. Anomaly, who has a robot arm. I dunno get creative.

In my role playing career I have run many knock offs.  I had a DM that let me run Darth Vader, Darth Maul, and a Wolverine knock off.  Having Darth Maul knock on George Lucas front door was a fun RP session.  Vader ended up in a uber fantasy (very high magic) setting where we even got some Stormtrooper golems and set up a Star Wars series of plays. (no movie screens)  My Wolv knock off was named Badger and more or less a parallel uniberse.  Of course Badger is not available in game and frankly claws regen suck in CoH anyways.  

 

I also have some long running "just mine" creations.  But I do enjoy taking a concept, like say Nosferatu, and try to experience what the world is like through that odd perspective.  There has been so many stories told through human history that almost everything is inspired by or a amalgamation of other peoples ideas.  Even my reptile man Sssautharg who was a Mana Fire/Evil Mentalist in RoleMaster was probably just bits of all my other RP adventures glued together.  But not a knock off, nothing like him around I remember.  But there is nothing truly new under the sun.  Humans do not work that way.

[kito]

I have always wondered if you warn someone that there costume name or nsfw stuff in there info is not allowed and they chang do you still need to report it to the gm?

[GM Crumpet]

30 minutes ago, kito said:

I have always wondered if you warn someone that there costume name or nsfw stuff in there info is not allowed and they chang do you still need to report it to the gm?

If someone changes they are good to go. Sometimes people don't realise and just need a word in their ear. We don't punish people for poor choices if they correct those choices.

[GM Crumpet]

13 hours ago, Captain Fabulous said:

What do we do with the screenshot? Is there a way to attach it to an in-game report? Or should we use some other method to report?

You can make a report via the forum rather than the ingame reporting system. The forum allows you to attach screen shots to the ticket 

[Player2]

30 minutes ago, GM Crumpet said:

If someone changes they are good to go. Sometimes people don't realise and just need a word in their ear. We don't punish people for poor choices if they correct those choices.

It often seems like the sometimes intentionally vague rules are selectively enforced, so...  meh.

[Neiska]

57 minutes ago, Player2 said:

It often seems like the sometimes intentionally vague rules are selectively enforced, so...  meh.

 

I might be able to offer some insight.

 

But before I do, I want to make it clear that this is only my personal experience as a staff member for a different but similar game. (Neverwinter Nights 2 for those wondering.) A similar circumstance - a private server with a community, active forums, roleplay, etc. But I claim no hidden knowledge or 100% accuracy in how CoH runs things, I am only sharing how we managed things as well as why.

 

1. "The rules are vague!" - Yes, intentionally so. Having vague rules serves multiple purposes - 

 

1a. There are "a lot" of us, and only a hand full of them. Enforcing and policing rules in a community this size would be a full time job. Having vague rules gives staff members room to make personal calls and decisions where needed.

 

1b. The moment you make a hard, clear cut, lawyer written rule, in about three minutes you will have people who dance up and down that rule, and try to get as close as possible without actually breaking it, and often enough break the "spirit" of the rule, but not actually breaking the rule itself.

 

As an example, I will quote a line from Sword and the Stone -

Merlin- "Come now Mim, you made the rules and you said No Dragons!"

Mim- "Did I say no PURPLE Dragons? Well, DID I?"

 

You will see this almost constantly. People can be clever with wordplay or, shall we call it, "creative interpretation" of the rules. Another example would be "You never said no Dragons, on TUESDAYS" and so on.

 

1c. Having vaguely written rules is actually an advantage to the Staff. Not from the "play nice" standpoint, but from the "lets see what they can do" standpoint. It allowed our big brain people watch to see "how" people would try to break the rules via exploits and the like. So in a way, we used our own trolls and/or cheaters as a QA process. Not that they were ever aware of it of course. We would just watch to see what they did, and quietly make adjustments where necessary. It actually proved to be very successful as a way of highlighting to us what needed attention and/or fixing.

 

This isn't to mention that it would take time and resources to actually write a sort of players code of conduct, as well as policing and enforcing it. When I hope we all could agree we would rather the staff work on other things, rather than spending their precious time chasing down offenders who like to draw attention for thrills.

 

2. "The rules are selectively enforced!" - Well, yes and no.

 

2a. As mentioned, there are a "lot" of us, and a handful of "them." A staff member might spend every spare moment stomping out offenders, and you personally might never notice. And how would you? It isn't as if the staff is going to personally notify you of their actions.

 

2b. All you might see, or even realize, is that the "offender" is suddenly gone. You might chalk it up to playtime or circumstance, when the staff member may have taken action. Or they may not. There is simply no way to tell. And I would argue, that it isn't our business what steps they took against the offender in the first place. You did your part. You made a ticket and reported it. That should be the end of your involvement.

 

2c. Context matters. Using my own experience as an example, we had one rule that was more or less "Roleplay how you like in private." This is because different players will roleplay differently. Some take the lore and books as kiss-your-elbow-gospel, and others take it as more of a guideline. And these two groups of player styles can often get into arguments. So in our attempt to compromise, it was "Rp as you like in private." Well, then the term of what is or is not "private" got called into question - it started as 1 on 1, then it got expanded to private player houses/bases, then it moved onto personal guilds, and then suddenly it was being practiced by "official" guilds as well, followed shortly thereafter by people in official elected positions and the like. 

 

The point is, is that the rules kind of have to be selectively enforced. Because people are going to people, meaning any rule in place they will analyze and try to see how it might advantage them personally.

 

At this point I would point out that being too aggressive with trying to "police others" can be just as bad. "You" might see something you dislike or believe is against the rules, and submit a ticket. The staff member looks into it, and makes a personal judgement call of "well, I think that's fine" and does nothing about it. IE - they disagree with you. Now it may look from outside appearances that nothing was done. But in actuality a judgement call was made that simply disagreed with your view on the situation. Who knows, perhaps even the other person and the staff member even had a conversation, one which you were not a part of. (In truth, situations like these made up the vast number of 'rules are selectively enforced' complaints I had to deal with.) The rules weren't selectively enforced, the person who made the ticket was wrong. It's really that simple. A staff member might have looked into the costume or whatever and said "it's similar, but it's different "enough" and closed the ticket. Or that person with the costume might have simply disappeared from your point of view, and you simply never realized.

 

Anyway, there is a lot more I could go into. But that is the skinny of why "we" had vaguely written rules. And why things might have seemed one way, but in actuality was not. Please bear in mind, you only see one side of things - your side. Not the staffs side, or even the side you might be complaining about.

 

Again, NONE of this is directly related to CoH staff, how it writes the rules, why, and how they police them. But I wouldn't be surprised if there were similarities.

Edited August 8, 2023 by Neiska

[Player2]

  

56 minutes ago, Neiska said:

1. "The rules are vague!" - Yes, intentionally so. Having vague rules serves multiple purposes - 

 

1a. There are "a lot" of us, and only a hand full of them. Enforcing and policing rules in a community this size would be a full time job. Having vague rules gives staff members room to make personal calls and decisions where needed.

 

 

This promotes an "us against them" mentality, and the larger side is put in a decidedly disadvantaged position of having no recourse when different GMs enforce these vague rules differently.  This will in turn create a tension between some of the player base, especially when someone with a name that doesn't technically break any rules but might be considered to push the envelope is punished while someone goes around with one that might be blatantly rulebreaking at level 50+ and no one says anything.  I have reported some offensive names and I get the form letter response indicating that I won't be informed of any decisions made for blah blah blah reasons... but I don't need to be informed if I stick the offensive name on a friend list and see that my ticket was closed and no action was taken because that person still runs around with the reported name.

 

  

56 minutes ago, Neiska said:

1b. The moment you make a hard, clear cut, lawyer written rule, in about three minutes you will have people who dance up and down that rule, and try to get as close as possible without actually breaking it, and often enough break the "spirit" of the rule, but not actually breaking the rule itself.

 

As an example, I will quote a line from Sword and the Stone -

Merlin- "Come now Mim, you made the rules and you said No Dragons!"

Mim- "Did I say no PURPLE Dragons? Well, DID I?"

 

You will see this almost constantly. People can be clever with wordplay or, shall we call it, "creative interpretation" of the rules. Another example would be "You never said no Dragons, on TUESDAYS" and so on.

 

 

That example is not clever and is a clear violation of the rule.  "No dragons" says no dragons, which means all dragons are excluded regardless of color.  Your example falls flat and wins you zero points.

 

Also, if a rule is vague then it isn't a rule at all... it's a damned suggestion that lets whoever's in charge at the minute decide what they want the rule to be.  That isn't fair to anyone.

 

 

  

56 minutes ago, Neiska said:

1c. Having vaguely written rules is actually an advantage to the Staff. Not from the "play nice" standpoint, but from the "lets see what they can do" standpoint. It allowed our big brain people watch to see "how" people would try to break the rules via exploits and the like. So in a way, we used our own trolls and/or cheaters as a QA process. Not that they were ever aware of it of course. We would just watch to see what they did, and quietly make adjustments where necessary. It actually proved to be very successful as a way of highlighting to us what needed attention and/or fixing.

 

 

Wrong.  As I said, if it's too vague then it's not a rule and lets the people in charge in the moment make a decision.  That means the rules change whenever a new GM arrives... and a constantly shifting set of "rules" is unfair to the players.  Make rules, stick to them, ALLOW people to appeal decisions, and if the rules are too strict or too loose, then update the rules as needed... but make sure to post that they've been updated and how in a fairly obvious way, such as the part where we have to agree to the CoC upon logging in to the game... and maybe even before when we pull up the launcher.  Because right now, I see no effort to "quietly make adjustments where necessary."  It's just rules intentionally vague because it benefits the GM side of things.  Well, if that's the way it is, I think the GMs are coddled and deserve to have everyone push every envelop there is.  Overwork them and wreck the system so that we can get some real change.

 

 

  

56 minutes ago, Neiska said:

This isn't to mention that it would take time and resources to actually write a sort of players code of conduct, as well as policing and enforcing it. When I hope we all could agree we would rather the staff work on other things, rather than spending their precious time chasing down offenders who like to draw attention for thrills.

 

 

So, again... leaves it open to individual discretion, which means the intentionally vague rules get selectively enforced... a situation that isn't fair to the players, and that makes me have zero sympathy for the GMs.  Too hard for them?  Well then, don't volunteer.  Or get more volunteers.  Don't want to write rules more clearly?  Then just admit you don't want rules, you want to oppress the players selectively... and even if that isn't what you want, it is what you get.  When some people get away with things because vague rules don't apply to them even in obvious situations where they should while the same vague rules target other people for lesser reasons, then it's selective oppression... possibly random or who knows, maybe favoritism.  Without transparency there is no way of knowing, and since the GMs get the favor of inflicting the vague rules how they see fit, why should we trust that they have any intent of being fair?

 

 

  

56 minutes ago, Neiska said:

2. "The rules are selectively enforced!" - Well, yes and no.

 

2a. As mentioned, there are a "lot" of us, and a handful of "them." A staff member might spend every spare moment stomping out offenders, and you personally might never notice. And how would you? It isn't as if the staff is going to personally notify you of their actions.

 

2b. All you might see, or even realize, is that the "offender" is suddenly gone. You might chalk it up to playtime or circumstance, when the staff member may have taken action. Or they may not. There is simply no way to tell. And I would argue, that it isn't our business what steps they took against the offender in the first place. You did your part. You made a ticket and reported it. That should be the end of your involvement.

 

2c. Context matters. Using my own experience as an example, we had one rule that was more or less "Roleplay how you like in private." This is because different players will roleplay differently. Some take the lore and books as kiss-your-elbow-gospel, and others take it as more of a guideline. And these two groups of player styles can often get into arguments. So in our attempt to compromise, it was "Rp as you like in private." Well, then the term of what is or is not "private" got called into question - it started as 1 on 1, then it got expanded to private player houses/bases, then it moved onto personal guilds, and then suddenly it was being practiced by "official" guilds as well, followed shortly thereafter by people in official elected positions and the like. 

 

Context matters?  Bull.  Character name reported:  Useless Lesbian, and I find that pretty damned offensive.  GM response same day, so it's not like anyone was too overworked to notice it.  That character is still running around with that name.  Since we're obviously in an us vs. them situation with the GMs, should I name the GM that chose to ignore this?  I mean, I outed myself for reporting it now, maybe the GM will come along and explain why that name is okay.  And if so, I'd love to know why my merc/FF mastermind named F-Bomb because of the double entendre and use of Force Bomb power was taken away along with a warning not to use it again or more severe action will be taken against my account.  Is the profanity rule so strict that we can't even refer to words that refer to profanity?  For the record, the only "f-bombs" I dropped in chat was the word fudge... for humor, because subverting expectations.  So I'd love to call bullcrap on all of your explanations, but I'm worried that "bullcrap" might be mistaken for another expletive and get me in trouble for breaking profanity rules... despite people frequently using the vulgar term for excrement.

 

 

  

56 minutes ago, Neiska said:

The point is, is that the rules kind of have to be selectively enforced. Because people are going to people, meaning any rule in place they will analyze and try to see how it might advantage them personally.

 

 

No, the point is that if the rules are selectively enforced then the people who enforce them are abusing the players by playing favorites to some in turning a blind eye sometimes while cracking down too hard at others, and with no real means of recourse for the players or any effort at transparency with the how the GM decision-making process goes.  It literally comes down to how a GM feels about the vaguely written rules in a given situation... which is really taking advantage of the players.  So again, if people are breaking the rules, then now I say good.  If you see there aren't enough GMs to handle it all, then I say too bad.  If you're say they need our sympathy because they're outnumbered, then I say that explanation is wrong to be based on the premise of us vs them.  If you tell me that more specific rules would be taken advantage of, then I ask how is it not easier to take advantage of intentionally more vague rules?  I mean, aside from letting a handful of people dictate what is sometimes offensive but other times not.

 

I have no sympathy for the GMs at this point, and you've not made it any better but only made me resent them more.  Good job.

 

 

[Player2]

2 minutes ago, Player2 said:

Context matters?  Bull.  Character name reported:  Useless Lesbian, and I find that pretty damned offensive.  GM response same day, so it's not like anyone was too overworked to notice it.  That character is still running around with that name.  Since we're obviously in an us vs. them situation with the GMs, should I name the GM that chose to ignore this?

 

 

By the way, before you try to make excuses for this one, the second item under the Content Guidelines section of the CoC states:

 

"Hate speech is defined as anything threatening or abusive towards a specific group based on their race, religious beliefs, political affiliation, disability, sexual orientation or gender identity"

 

Identifying a character as lesbian and indicating they are useless is BLATANTLY abusive toward gender identity.  And the GM who ignored this is JUST as offensive for letting it slide.