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Name database - Will this get cleaned up?


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Don't discount foreign languages for names as well.  I had a KM/EA Brute named Mass Meister since Mass Master was unavailable.  Fire Bolt taken...go German with Feuerblitz. Sounds just as cool. Or you can get a misdirect such as Leech using Japanese becomes Hiru (close to Hero) Just don't use Welsh...I'm Welsh descent and not even I can pronounce much of the language. LOL

Edited by Go0gleplex
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13 minutes ago, Go0gleplex said:

Don't discount foreign languages for names as well.  I had a KM/EA Brute named Mass Meister since Mass Master was unavailable.  Fire Bolt taken...go German with Feuerblitz. Sounds just as cool. Just don't use Welsh...I'm Welsh descent and not even I can pronounce much of the language. LOL

 

I have to disagree, Feuerblitz is much cooler, Fire Bolt is rather mundane compared to it.

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18 hours ago, Ironblade said:

Will there be a clean-up?  Maybe.  Maybe not.  The devs have looked at the situation and the simple fact is that it's not going to free up vast numbers of good names.  It just isn't.

 

You are probably citing old information from the Live servers.  For a number of reasons mentioned both in this thread and previously, it is not even close to the same situation.  HC allows 1000 character names per account, which is effectively unlimited when you add the fact anyone can have any number of accounts.   Since opening HC, millions of names have been scooped up and a huge portion of them abandoned without really even playing them.   

 

Worth noting that some people seem not to be aware the policy was updated to 365 days inactive for any character level 6+, with 50s still being indefinitely preserved.  Later in this same feedback thread, it is pointed out by Telephone that there are something like 700,000 names in the "less than 6 and inactive" grouping and "significantly less" in the 6-49 range.  The idea that none of these names are "good" is wishful thinking by people who don't want this policy activated.   It will free up hundreds of thousands of names.  The devs wouldn't be spending their valuable and unpaid time working on this if it wasn't going to do anything at all.

 

All this said, remember this whole thing is on pause (and has been since page 4) due to some as yet unresolved technical problems.  It may yet be the case they DON'T have the time to diagnose and fix those problems and hence this never will be activated.  In the meantime, it's a good idea to take a look at your own stable of characters and note the warning signs if they are displayed.  They could flip the switch that activates this policy any time, though I doubt they will do so without a decent amount of notice.

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Folks I played WoW since vanilla on Dalaran, one of, if not the most, populated servers and that's a game that never purges names and I've always been able to find something original for new toons. I'm not down for a purge and I'm only 2 weeks vested, so basically brand new. BTW probably the best game I've played in a long while. Almost hate that I never played live and literally feel moderately guilty that such a quality game is free. Also, CoH always for way more flexibility in naming than WoW does. It ain't difficult...

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20 hours ago, ZemX said:

If we're placing bets, I think it's likely that policy gets turned on at some point in the not too distant future.

I agree,  If for no other reason than to be able to say, "Okay, we ran the name purge like people keep asking.  If you can't get the name you wanted, well, we did all we could."

 

 

17 hours ago, macskull said:

Reaching level 50 is a completely arbitrary distinction and has no correlation with commitment to a character.

True, but life is full of arbitrary cut-offs.  Why is the drinking age different in different states?  Because it's an arbitrary number and people had different opinions.

 

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16 hours ago, Go0gleplex said:

Don't discount foreign languages for names as well.  I had a KM/EA Brute named Mass Meister since Mass Master was unavailable.  Fire Bolt taken...go German with Feuerblitz. Sounds just as cool. Just don't use Welsh...I'm Welsh descent and not even I can pronounce much of the language. LOL

Some names are okay, like Clwyd.   🙂

 

 

22 minutes ago, WuTang said:

Almost hate that I never played live and literally feel moderately guilty that such a quality game is free. Also, CoH always for way more flexibility in naming than WoW does. It ain't difficult...

Did you know that you can contribute to the server upkeep to assuage your guilt?  Homecoming accepts donations through PayPal on the last Saturday of each month.  When the donation window 'opens', it is announced on here and on Discord.

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Originally on Infinity.  I have Ironblade on every shard.  -  My only AE arc:  The Origin of Mark IV  (ID 48002)

Link to the story of Toggle Man, since I keep having to track down my original post.

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5 minutes ago, Ironblade said:

True, but life is full of arbitrary cut-offs.  Why is the drinking age different in different states?  Because it's an arbitrary number and people had different opinions.

Speaking about the US here, but 21 wasn't chosen arbitrarily (sure, it was based on dubious science but that's not the point) and while the individual states technically can set their drinking age however they want, there's federal money tied to keeping it at 21 so that's where it is everywhere.

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17 hours ago, eiynp said:

they made a mistake by giving everybody essentially infinite character slots right at the get go; I get why they did, but it just encourages people to sit on however many names they can think of. Unfortunately I doubt there's any walking that back.

 

it's well and good to tell people to be more creative but it's also pretty discouraging to come up with 10-12 ideas for a particular concept character's handle and find every one taken

I can't remember how long ago it was but I encouraged the Dev team to allow 50 slots per shard to start. If you're active then you get tokens for more slots. That was my idea and I still think it's a good idea. However, the Dev that replied said: they'll just go make another account.

 

I am sure some will go make a second account but others probably couldn't be bothered. Count me as the latter. I want all of my toons on one account and I'm good. 

 

The name release policy is a shame cuz I do have some lower level toons that have names I like but the powers were not fun. So I have been re-imagining them and so on. Oh well.

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51 minutes ago, BurtHutt said:

I can't remember how long ago it was but I encouraged the Dev team to allow 50 slots per shard to start. If you're active then you get tokens for more slots. That was my idea and I still think it's a good idea. However, the Dev that replied said: they'll just go make another account.

 

I am sure some will go make a second account but others probably couldn't be bothered. Count me as the latter. I want all of my toons on one account and I'm good. 

 

The name release policy is a shame cuz I do have some lower level toons that have names I like but the powers were not fun. So I have been re-imagining them and so on. Oh well.

 

Unfortunately, the horse left the barn years ago for that.  There were quite a few people who made a hundred or more characters the week that the servers went online just to reserve character names.

Edited by Lunar Ronin
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12 minutes ago, Lunar Ronin said:

 

Unfortunately, the horse left the barn years ago for that.  There were quite a few people who made a hundred or more characters the week that the servers went online just to reserve character names.

I think we're all aware of that. However, if they changed it back when, it may have curbed the problem. The concerns were further exacerbated when they became official and a pile of new players hopped in. Honestly, I'm happy to see more people on and not too worried about the names.

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3 minutes ago, PatternGhost said:

 

WoW does name releases, and has for a very long time.

 

Plus, I've never played WoW so I may be wrong, but I very much doubt that WoW gives you a thousand character slots per shard.  And from everything that I've read and heard about WoW over the past two decades, most players there concentrate on one or two "main" characters.

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I'm only sitting on 62 alts on Excelsior. I have a problem and taking my substance off me is not going to help with my addiction recovery!!! :classic_sad:

 

Seriously, OP's first post, he's been here for a hot minute and is already demanding policy/rule changes? Please. :classic_rolleyes:

Edited by Nostromo21
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Game over man, game over!

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On 1/23/2024 at 9:53 PM, Pony Up said:

How many people are sitting on names?  Will there be a clean up?  Because this is worse than OG COH.

 

 

If someone posts a reply quoting me and I don't reply, they may be on ignore.

(It seems I'm involved with so much at this point that I may not be able to easily retrieve access to all the notifications)

Some players know that I have them on ignore and are likely to make posts knowing that is the case.

But the fact that I have them on ignore won't stop some of them from bullying and harassing people, because some of them love to do it. There is a group that have banded together to target forum posters they don't like. They think that this behavior is acceptable.

Ignore (in the forums) and /ignore (in-game) are tools to improve your gaming experience. Don't feel bad about using them.

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On 1/25/2024 at 7:09 AM, sbloyd said:

I know this sounds kind of smarmy, but there's good sides to the lack of 'free' names, inasmuch as it forces me to be more creative with my naming.  Heck, one of my favourites, "Chenobyl Effect", would not have that name as I originally tried something simple like "Radioactive Girl".

 

It's spelt Chernobyl ;) I have a rad/rad stalker called Roentgen, pretty proud of that :).

 

My main is 'Pen Umbra' because you guessed it, Penumbra was taken. No biggie.

And I just landed 'Darkfriend' on both Excelsior and Indom recently, super-surprised no one had taken it.

I even have a couple costume copyright infringements called Spider-Woeman and Spider-Main, so sue me :D.

 

Sometimes I think of a name and that becomes the theme, then I decide on the AT/primary/secondary and do the costume. I would be quite pissed if the name was just taken off me one day when I logged in, with no warning. At the very least, the devs need to give owners min 30 days' notice, both in-game and forum mail, as well as via email if possible.

Case in point: I have a couple pages of level 4s and under that just popped up with the name alert, with only 23-25 days offline. And I am positive I just refreshed them and all of my lower levels a week (or two at most) ago. While the tracking system is as bugged as the whitehouse, please do NOT implement any changes to the policy devs!

Edited by Nostromo21
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Game over man, game over!

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Random suggestions occurred to me while perusing this thread. Would any of these help, do you think?

  • Make names able to be traded on the Auction House?
  • Give out once-a-week tokens that would message the owning player? ("Another player has expressed interest in this name. Reply to contact them anonymously.")
  • Lengthen the character name field from 20 to 30 letters?
  • Reward a badge for players who surrender a name?
  • Make the optional definite article count as part of the name. (That way "Doctor" could coexist with "The Doctor" on the same server.)
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Disclaimer: Not a medical doctor. Do not take medical advice from Doctor Ditko.

Also, not a physicist. Do not take advice on consensus reality from Doctor Ditko.

But games? He used to pay his bills with games. (He's recovering well, thanks for asking!)

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46 minutes ago, DoctorDitko said:

Random suggestions occurred to me while perusing this thread. Would any of these help, do you think?

  • Make names able to be traded on the Auction House?
  • Give out once-a-week tokens that would message the owning player? ("Another player has expressed interest in this name. Reply to contact them anonymously.")
  • Lengthen the character name field from 20 to 30 letters?
  • Reward a badge for players who surrender a name?
  • Make the optional definite article count as part of the name. (That way "Doctor" could coexist with "The Doctor" on the same server.)

I like these ideas. The only downsides I can see are that it doesn't address the names used by players no longer playing, and programming since the code is always a problem.

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9 hours ago, Nostromo21 said:

 

It's spelt Chernobyl 😉 I have a rad/rad stalker called Roentgen, pretty proud of that 🙂.

 

...stupid keyboard.  Fixed. Thx.

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Horizon Twilight, The Chernobyl Effect, XLR Mk8, Dodgeball, and a host of other alts all hanging out on Everlasting.

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11 hours ago, PatternGhost said:

 

WoW does name releases, and has for a very long time.

Only time I know of any name "releasing" was when they had server merging, and that's it. A friend of mine gave me his account a while back, it's been dormant for 10 years, all his toons were there. So..... Who knows maybe we're both right?

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11 hours ago, Lunar Ronin said:

 

Plus, I've never played WoW so I may be wrong, but I very much doubt that WoW gives you a thousand character slots per shard.  And from everything that I've read and heard about WoW over the past two decades, most players there concentrate on one or two "main" characters.

Wow was around waaaaay before 2019, and allows 50 toons and all can be on one server. Given the palyer base numbers I can easily imagine that there are way more names consumed on a heavily pop'd server like Dal.

But I'm not here to argue....just gave my opinion and I stand by it.

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