Name database - Will this get cleaned up?

[Nostromo21]

On 2/4/2024 at 2:44 PM, Force Redux said:

 

I hear ya, not giving up favorite names either. But I got a number of others I don't mind releasing 🙂👍🏻

 

That just gave me an idea. Wouldn't it be cool if we could trade entire heroes (name, costume, current level/powers/enhancements, etc) on the AH...perhaps with just a hardcoded acknowledgement of the original creator somewhere in the Bio or the like, which couldn't be changed...? Or perhaps not.

[lemming]

Personally, the way the way it's presented, there will probably be some names released and probably picked up quickly by those of us who don't have the name we wanted in the first place. Since 50s are safe, and it's a long wait fpr level 6+, it's not going to hit too many people that aren't logging in.   Think of it as defending trademarks.

[Player2]

11 hours ago, Nostromo21 said:

 

That just gave me an idea. Wouldn't it be cool if we could trade entire heroes (name, costume, current level/powers/enhancements, etc) on the AH...perhaps with just a hardcoded acknowledgement of the original creator somewhere in the Bio or the like, which couldn't be changed...? Or perhaps not.

Whether it would be cool or not, I'm almost certain it isn't a viable idea.

 

I remember maintaining 2 accounts back on Live, and the secondary account had one level 50 and was where I dabbled with new ideas and so lots of low level characters that came and went.  When I decided to close down the secondary account, I contacted the dev team to ask if there was any way to move a character from one account to another so I could keep playing that 50, and I was told that it wasn't possible.  Of course, maybe the were lying to me out of spite, cruelty, some twisted desire to make me maintain two accounts, or some other reason...  but I doubt it.

[ZemX]

6 minutes ago, Player2 said:

Of course, maybe the were lying to me out of spite, cruelty, some twisted desire to make me maintain two accounts, or some other reason...  but I doubt it.

 

I suspect on Live they didn't want to allow character transfers between accounts because it would facilitate real-money sales of level 50 characters.  There was an annoying enough problem with just real-money inf salesman spamming everyone all the time in game.   

[Hyperstrike]

1 hour ago, ZemX said:

 

I suspect on Live they didn't want to allow character transfers between accounts because it would facilitate real-money sales of level 50 characters.  There was an annoying enough problem with just real-money inf salesman spamming everyone all the time in game.   

This is EXACTLY why they did it.

 

[nzer]

15 hours ago, lemming said:

Since 50s are safe, and it's a long wait fpr level 6+, it's not going to hit too many people that aren't logging in.

 

I mentioned this earlier, but the fact that the policy is applied per character and the warning only shows up when the character becomes inactive means this could easily hit people who are logging in every day if they have characters they happen to not be using regularly.

[Oubliette_Red]

29 minutes ago, nzer said:

 

I mentioned this earlier, but the fact that the policy is applied per character and the warning only shows up when the character becomes inactive means this could easily hit people who are logging in every day if they have characters they happen to not be using regularly.

 

Can probably resolve this by spreading your 50's/often-used-but-not-mains across all tabs with characters on them, that way when you are scrolling through to look for that Demon MM you only run on all MM teams, you're more likely to see characters with the warning, rather than just having the more oft used characters filling up the first couple of tab.

 

[ZemX]

15 minutes ago, nzer said:

I mentioned this earlier, but the fact that the policy is applied per character and the warning only shows up when the character becomes inactive means this could easily hit people who are logging in every day if they have characters they happen to not be using regularly.

 

The warning flag will appear 30 days in advance for a level 6-49 character who hasn't been logged in for 11 months.  But nobody has to wait for that flag to appear.  You can pick any day of the year and refresh your unused toons if you really want to keep names you aren't using even once a year.

 

Level 1-5 characters have to be refreshed monthly and only get 7 days notice.  If that's a burden for someone who has many such characters... well... it's supposed to be.  Name camping isn't being prevented, but it's going to require at least a little effort.

 

This is all assuming the policy ever gets turned on.  Far as I've heard, it's on an indefinite hold because of some problems.  They won't turn it on unless they think it's reliable.  Obviously they'd rather work on Page 7 for the time being so who knows when/if they will pick this up again.

[nzer]

Just now, ZemX said:

The warning flag will appear 30 days in advance for a level 6-49 character who hasn't been logged in for 11 months.  But nobody has to wait for that flag to appear.  You can pick any day of the year and refresh your unused toons if you really want to keep names you aren't using even once a year.

 

I need you, for just three seconds, to try to imagine things from the perspective of someone other than yourself. That is, someone who isn't on the forums every single day and doesn't know the name release policy exists.

 

That player's first exposure to this system is going to be when they see an inactivity icon on one of their alts, likely one buried several pages back in the character list. They may not see it in that 30 day warning period, depending on how often they play and which characters they happen to choose to play. They may not even see it until the name has already been claimed by another player.

 

Do you think the fact that they haven't played that particular character in a year is grounds enough for them to lose the name, even if they themselves have still been logging in regularly during that time? I, personally, think thinking you should be able to take a name from an active player solely because they didn't know they had to log into every single character on their account regularly to stave off a policy they didn't know existed is ridiculously, insanely entitled. And I think arguing against fixing such an obvious pitfall of this policy as it's currently written is a little odd.

[Captain Fabulous]

Won't people stop thinking only of themselves and start thinking about the poor tortured name hoarders!!!

Edited February 6 by Captain Fabulous

[Luminara]

28 minutes ago, nzer said:

I need you, for just three seconds

 

Viagra, my man.  Viagra.

[nzer]

25 minutes ago, Captain Fabulous said:

Won't people stop thinking only of themselves and start thinking about the poor tortured name hoarders!!!

 

As has been pointed out directly to you several times now, this policy does practically nothing to stop actual name hoarders.

[ZemX]

42 minutes ago, nzer said:

I need you, for just three seconds, to try to imagine things from the perspective of someone other than yourself. That is, someone who isn't on the forums every single day and doesn't know the name release policy exists.

 

That isn't the problem.  Your fictional victim of the name release policy doesn't NEED to log into the forums.  Whenever there is an update, there is an in-game notification when you log in afterwards.  You know that.  There was one when the phase 1 warning system went into effect.  There will be another when/if the name release policy is activated for real.  And you have to stretch this to imagine someone who has managed not to see any of the warning flags on any of their other unused characters in an entire year and a half that the warning system has been in operation. 

 

I am not the one being unreasonable here.  You aren't describing someone who can "easily" miss all this.  You are describing someone who seems to be working very hard to miss all this and not care about major developments in the game they are playing.  Exactly how much sympathy should I have for someone working so hard to not know anything about the game they are playing and then crying that they didn't know the rules?

 

1 hour ago, nzer said:

Do you think the fact that they haven't played that particular character in a year is grounds enough for them to lose the name, even if they themselves have still been logging in regularly during that time?

 

Are you intentionally missing the fact that we would ALL, myself included, be playing by these same rules?  My own characters, if they are inactive that long, would be subject to name release.  So the answer to your question, given I am advocating they turn this on, has already been answered.

 

1 hour ago, nzer said:

I, personally, think thinking you should be able to take a name from an active player solely because they didn't know they had to log into every single character on their account regularly to stave off a policy they didn't know existed is ridiculously, insanely entitled. And I think arguing against fixing such an obvious pitfall of this policy as it's currently written is a little odd.

 

Perhaps you should take your own advice from the very start of your last post then, because it seems you can't see this from any perspective but YOUR own, doesn't it?  We do not all see names as the sole and eternal property of the first person who happened to type them in on a server.  These rules establish how you might keep that name and ALL would be subject to these same rules.   While you are talking about me "taking" from someone else, you ignore that someone else could "take" from me.  Except I don't call it taking.  I call it me abandoning that name despite clear rules telling me how to avoid that and very generous time tables to accomplish it.

 

You don't see it the same way.  I get that.  But I also don't have to agree with it.  And my agreement is irrelevant anyway.  I am not the one who will decide whether and when this ever gets turned on.   

 

[nzer]

11 minutes ago, ZemX said:

Whenever there is an update, there is an in-game notification when you log in afterwards.

 

If you think most players read the entirety of the patch notes for every update, you are quite simply incorrect. I would bet most players don't read them at all, especially not from a pop-up right after they enter the game. That is possibly the worst place to expose patch notes, because at that very moment the player is actively trying to play the game, which the patch notes are an unscheduled interruption from. If there's any point when the player would be most willing to immediately dismiss a notification, it's right then.

 

Regardless, "well it was in the patch notes last year" is such a horrible rebuttal.

 

16 minutes ago, ZemX said:

Are you intentionally missing the fact that we would ALL, myself included, be playing by these same rules?

 

I don't see how this is relevant. I already know you want people to be able to lose their names, that's why we're having this argument in the first place.

 

19 minutes ago, ZemX said:

These rules establish how you might keep that name and ALL would be subject to these same rules.

 

Yes, and with the way the rules are currently written those who know about them and have the time to game them would be disproportionately favored, which I think is unfair. If you want to disagree with that, or disagree that it's a problem, be my guest. I'll continue to argue with you over it.

[ZemX]

1 hour ago, nzer said:

Regardless, "well it was in the patch notes last year" is such a horrible rebuttal.

 

Oh yes, that was the entirety of my argument.  Oh wait... no it wasn't.   But, I have to say, I was expecting you to say that your imaginary person would ignore the popup box informing them in-game of every patch change.  After all, you invented them to do precisely everything necessary to make your argument work, so why would they do anything else?

 

You: What if they don't visit the forums every day!?

Me: They don't need to. They'll be informed in-game when this change goes live.

You: What if they ignore that too!?

Me: ...

 

1 hour ago, nzer said:

I don't see how this is relevant. I already know you want people to be able to lose their names, that's why we're having this argument in the first place.

 

How is this not relevant?  You asked if I was okay with someone else losing a name to this policy and I answered that I am okay with ME losing one of MY names to this policy if I am not active enough to log them in once a year.  I get that you'd prefer this was about me taking something away from someone else.  I am just pointing out what a horseshit argument that is.  Sorry (not actually sorry).

 

1 hour ago, nzer said:

Yes, and with the way the rules are currently written those who know about them and have the time to game them would be disproportionately favored, which I think is unfair. If you want to disagree with that, or disagree that it's a problem, be my guest. I'll continue to argue with you over it.

 

Knock yourself out but if it's gets down to use shouting "yes it is!" "no it isn't" "Oh yeah, well you smell bad!" it'll probably be time to hang it up.

 

That said...  "unfair" would imply I have some opportunity to know about things that someone else does not.  But that isn't the case in your contrived argument.  You have invented a person who is willfully avoiding knowing about changes to the game.  The devs who make the change are literally putting it in their face and they are ignoring it.  So no, I have no sympathy for your poor, willfully ignorant, totally made up person being surprised if they lose a character name they haven't even glanced at in passing for more than a year.  

 

You can certainly TRY  to argue this point with me.  But I am not going to change my mind for the simple reason that if it's MY OWN character and I lost the name because I hadn't even LOOKED at them in more than a year, I wouldn't be here crying and complaining about it, nor would I rage quit HC cursing the devs and that one rando on the forums who always said he liked the policy.

 

I'd grab a thesaurus and rename them because that's the important life lesson that so many people have come into this thread (on just about every page) to teach me (ad nauseum)! That's it's not important if I don't have exactly the name I want.  There are thesauruses and Googles and internets full of name generators!  Names are easy!  Names are cheap!  Thanks you guys for explaining this to me!  You're the best!  Now that I know about thesauruses, I shall never fear the name reaper!

[ChzBoi]

3 minutes ago, ZemX said:

 

........... fear the name reaper!........

.......

................

[nzer]

8 hours ago, ZemX said:

Oh yes, that was the entirety of my argument.  Oh wait... no it wasn't.

 

It is literally what you're saying right now. You're saying that because the name release policy will be explained as part of a patch notes pop-up, that means every player is therefore perfectly aware of it at all times and are solely culpable for failing to maintain regular activity on every individual character. Your argument necessarily refuses to place any blame on the policy itself if someone loses a character because they didn't see the policy in the patch notes or forgot about it in the intervening twelve full months before the policy can even begin to come into effect, both of which are not just guaranteed to happen, but will in fact be the case for a vast majority of the playerbase, because contrary to what you, someone with 1.3k posts on these forums over what I imagine is a period of several years, clearly seem to think, not everyone is plugged into every little thing that's going on with the game at all times. In fact almost no one is.

 

I can't even with this. I'm not even talking about scrapping the name release policy at this point, just changing it so it isn't so easy for it to sneak up on players who are logging in regularly. I have no earthly idea why that stance would be controversial at all, yet here you are staunchly fighting it for I don't even know what reason. You have to be trolling at this point, or just so aggressively contrarian that you can't fathom the idea of agreeing with anything anyone says unless it is exactly what you're already saying.

 

8 hours ago, ZemX said:

How is this not relevant?  You asked if I was okay with someone else losing a name to this policy

 

It was rhetorical. I'm trying to divine from my tea leaves the magical sequence of words that will get you to understand that basing this system on individual character inactivity reduces the whole system down to a "do you know exactly how the system works?" check, which is stupid. People who know they have to log in every single character individually will do so, and people who don't know that will not, and the latter will be at a substantial risk of losing their character names even if they are literally logging in to play every single day.

 

That is utterly nonsensical. We should not be discriminating against players who are categorically not inactive on the basis of whether they know the exact details of the name release policy. Anyone who is logging in regularly should be exempt from inactivity-based name release, because they are not inactive.

 

8 hours ago, ZemX said:

Knock yourself out but if it's gets down to use shouting "yes it is!" "no it isn't" "Oh yeah, well you smell bad!" it'll probably be time to hang it up.

 

Sure, you first.

Edited February 7 by nzer
punctuation

[Luminara]

13 hours ago, nzer said:

If you think most players read the entirety of the patch notes for every update, you are quite simply incorrect. I would bet most players don't read them at all, especially not from a pop-up right after they enter the game.

 

Willful ignorance doesn't excuse anyone from anything.  Never has, never will.

 

13 hours ago, nzer said:

That is possibly the worst place to expose patch notes, because at that very moment the player is actively trying to play the game, which the patch notes are an unscheduled interruption from. If there's any point when the player would be most willing to immediately dismiss a notification, it's right then.

 

Really?  You think a pop-up on zone-in for the first character that a player logs into is the worst time and place for it?  That the player would be less likely to immediately close it if it came up in the middle of combat, or navigating through a zone, or while he/she's interacting with the market, or trying to choose a reward, or editing a costume, or starting a respec, or...

 

...

[ZemX]

6 hours ago, nzer said:

It is literally what you're saying right now.

 

It literally is not.  You claimed my entire argument was about missing a popup from a year ago.    I JUST in that same post mentioned the other popup you will get when this system actually goes active.  And those two things aren't even the only ways to know about the name release policy.  Game news is displayed also on the launcher.  The name release policy is mentioned in the FAQ.  Warning flags have been appearing on inactive characters for a year and a half.  Your imaginary person not only doesn't play their inactive characters, they do not even page through their character list EVER!  Amazing!  Not even when rearranging their active character list?  When creating new alts?  I suppose next you will also tell me they have blocked all global chat channels in game so they can't even accidentally hear someone talking about the name release policy after it's activated?

 

Your hypothetical name release victim is avoiding knowledge of the game like it's spoilers for their favorite upcoming movie.  The name release policy will be only one of MANY things they do not know about this game if this is how they behave.

 

The reason we're talking past each other is that you've decided the assumption you base ALL of this on, that it is "easy to miss" this name release policy, is true.  That someone has to be a daily forumite to even know about it.  And you won't listen to any arguments to the contrary.  So yeah... not much point in continuing.

[nzer]

3 hours ago, Luminara said:

Really?  You think a pop-up on zone-in for the first character that a player logs into is the worst time and place for it?

 

Can you not? It would also be worse if one of the devs posted a flyer about it on some random street somewhere, but that isn't going to happen, so why bother talking about it?

 

2 hours ago, ZemX said:

I JUST in that same post mentioned the other popup you will get when this system actually goes active.

 

That's precisely the popup I'm talking about. If a player doesn't have any inactive characters when the system goes active, it will be a full twelve months before the policy can actually do anything. Most people will have forgotten about it by then, because no one has some random name release policy in the back of their heads at all times, nor should they have to.

 

And this doesn't even address players who start playing after the policy is implemented. They quite literally will not even have the opportunity to see this pop-up you're talking about, because they won't be here when it happens. Most people do not randomly read through all the launcher news and FAQs of every new game they play, and even if they do it would still be completely reasonable for them to forget a handful of sentences about a name release policy in the following twelve months.

 

2 hours ago, ZemX said:

I suppose next you will also tell me they have blocked all global chat channels in game so they can't even accidentally hear someone talking about the name release policy after it's activated?

 

I don't know why you think people will ever be talking about the name release policy in global chat channels. We have warning messages in-game currently and this giant forum argument, and I have never seen anyone talk about the name release policy in-game. This is a perfect example of your skewed perspective from posting on these boards every single day for years, and from your own personal investment in this issue. For most people, a name release policy is not something worth talking about or even thinking about.

 

It's like reading the terms of service for some random app. You're here debating over a particular section of the terms of service, and because you do so frequently, you have the misguided perception that other people are also interested in the terms of service and reread them whenever there's a change. But they don't. Other people don't care about the terms of service. They don't want to read the terms of service before they start using their shiny new app. They don't want to think about the terms of service while using their shiny new app. Even if they read the terms of service, they will not remember every single line item, because there are a lot of them and they are not directly relevant the vast majority of the time.

 

Similarly, people playing the game do not really care about a name release policy, and frankly I would be shocked if the devs didn't see people actively caring about the name release policy as a bad thing, because why on earth would you want the average player playing your game to be thinking about a name release policy every time they login? That would be horrible. It's supposed to be a transparent thing that happens in the background to free up names held by players who are no longer active. No one should want players to need to do active management of their characters to avoid name release.

 

2 hours ago, ZemX said:

Your imaginary person not only doesn't play their inactive characters, they do not even page through their character list EVER!

 

Sure they do. To run afoul of what I'm talking about they only need to not do so during the 30 day warning period. Someone could take a break from the game for a month, not a particularly long stretch of time, and come back to find one of their character names gone without having seen any warnings of any kind.

 

3 hours ago, Luminara said:

Willful ignorance doesn't excuse anyone from anything.  Never has, never will.

 

If you think not seeing a footnote in a patch notes pop-up or seeing it and not remembering it twelve months later is willful ignorance, you should reevaluate.

 

I don't understand why you two are even arguing over this. Both of you are so quick to act like the situation I'm describing couldn't possibly happen, even though it will definitely happen constantly, but neither of you, nor anyone else, has attempted to voice a reason why the system shouldn't work the way I described, or why it's actually better for it to work as currently written. Can you maybe try that, so this conversation can at least have some semblance of being productive?

Edited February 7 by nzer

[lemming]

So, if someone neglects a character for a year that is in the 6-49 level range, I'm not worried about their name becoming available for a new character.   Heck, based on the scenario that nzer describes, since this theoretical person won't see any of the warnings, they probably will never no that the character now has a different name.

 

Yes, this policy will discriminate against people who are not playing those characters.  Instead of the names being stuck in some dusty warehouse, they'll hopefully be used by someone.

[nzer]

Just now, lemming said:

Heck, based on the scenario that nzer describes, since this theoretical person won't see any of the warnings, they probably will never no that the character now has a different name.

 

Of course they will. The warning is only shown for 30 days prior to the name being released. It's perfectly reasonable for someone to not be able to play the game for a month because of real life, or to still be able to play, but only have very limited time.

 

That is, in fact, my entire point. The system is supposed to give players a year to prevent their characters' names from being released, but if you don't know about the policy or have forgotten about it, you actually only have 30 days. I don't think anyone in this thread would argue being away from the game for 30 days is sufficient grounds to lose a character name.

 

Again, there is no reason the policy has to be written this way, nor is what you're saying an argument for why it should be written this way.

[Excraft]

12 hours ago, nzer said:

We should not be discriminating against players who are categorically not inactive on the basis of whether they know the exact details of the name release policy. Anyone who is logging in regularly should be exempt from inactivity-based name release, because they are not inactive.

 

I don't disagree with you here in one respect. 

 

3 hours ago, nzer said:

Again, there is no reason the policy has to be written this way,

 

For clarity, many of us campaigned for this policy to be based on account (not individual character) activity.   If the account is active, that player is reachable by others to discuss exchange of a name.  A couple of the HC folk contributed to that discussion where they explained how the account tables  were separate from the individual shard tables, and there was no easy way to link them together to flag all characters on every shard for that account  as "active" when someone logs into their account.  I'm sure there are HC folk who could explain this in much finer detail, however suffice it to say they said to do this would be difficult and time consuming, so they opted for the low-hanging fruit solution of reviving the name release code that existed on live.  Personally, I think HC should take that whole linking of accounts and characters on shards together properly to solve this issue once and for all so everyone can have the name they want without arguing over this kind of stuff.  Given they are volunteers with limited time, makes sense that they went with this policy though.  I do hope they can take on larger projects to correct these long-standing issues at some point though. 

 

No doubt there are old accounts from 5+ years ago that haven't been logged into since the "secret" server was announced publicly.  At least to me, an account that hasn't been logged into for 5 years (or longer) is abandoned.  Your opinion may differ and that's fine. 

 

As for people not reading patch notes or in-game popups, I can't say I agree with you there.  The information is readily available to everyone and HC can't be responsible if they provide that info, but the player doesn't take the time to read it.  Once this job is set live, I've no doubt it will be put into the patch notes and show up in game.  If a player clicks the close button immediately on login, that's on them. 

[Ironblade]

On 2/6/2024 at 3:20 PM, nzer said:

That player's first exposure to this system is going to be when they see an inactivity icon on one of their alts, likely one buried several pages back in the character list.

Highly unlikely.  Significant changes like this are generally put right in the players faces with an in-game pop-up when they log in.

 

 

21 hours ago, nzer said:

If you think most players read the entirety of the patch notes for every update, you are quite simply incorrect. I would bet most players don't read them at all, especially not from a pop-up right after they enter the game.

Not just a link to the patch notes.  Important changes are put right in the pop-up.

And if they can't be bothered to read something that is prominently presented in the game, tough.  That's like the people who never read the terms and conditions and use that as a defense when they break the rules.

[Excraft]

On 2/6/2024 at 3:20 PM, nzer said:

That player's first exposure to this system is going to be when they see an inactivity icon on one of their alts, likely one buried several pages back in the character list. They may not see it in that 30 day warning period, depending on how often they play and which characters they happen to choose to play. They may not even see it until the name has already been claimed by another player.

 

Personally, this is a fair point and something I thought is an issue as well.  It's a niggle of a UI problem, but to me it will be easy to miss for some to miss for sure.  I wonder if there is a way for HC to move any characters to the "front of the line" to show up on the first page of the character listing to make it more obvious to the player?