Name database - Will this get cleaned up?

[ZacKing]

4 minutes ago, ZemX said:

 

If you page back through this and previous threads you will find people complaining about HAVING to do this.  So "prevent" is too strong a word, I agree.  But discourage?  Maybe.  But then again, it's also not the main reason.  This was invented way back when the devs could see HUGE portions of the name database just sitting there unused.

 

People complain about grinding all kinds of stuff in MMOs.  They still grind despite the complaining, so "hoarders" are still going to hold onto their names.

[ZacKing]

24 minutes ago, ZemX said:

That you can only imagine people arguing for this for selfish reasons is more revealing than you think.  Recycling desirable names nobody is using is just common sense good policy.  It was the devs who came up with this idea in the first place, remember.   Not some person desperately desiring a lost name from Live.  

 

This isn't true either.  The whole "name release" routine was created back when the game was live.  As I remember it, and I could be wrong, it was run once and didn't provide anywhere near the intended result.  If my memory is correct here, this was being enabled here because there were a few people complaining on the HC Discord about names being already taken.   So yeah, there were and still are people arguing for this for selfish reasons. 

[ZemX]

1 minute ago, ZacKing said:

Yeah, this is bollocks.  You're being disingenuous here.  No personal offense meant, but trying to say there's no people here who are chomping at the bit right now to release all those names in the hope that the one they really want will get freed up is just being willfully ignorant.

 

I agree that would be bollocks... if I had actually said it.  What I am saying is I doubt there's anyone who believes there is a 100% chance the name they want is in there.  

 

3 minutes ago, ZacKing said:

It's a false hope in that there's already a 1 in 700,000+ chance the name someone wants is going to get freed up.

 

Your math is... a little off there.   If a name I want is rejected it is either on a banned list or it's taken.  If it's taken it is either on an inactive character or an active one.  As noted previously, the inactive name list was around one third of the TOTAL name database back in that feedback thread.  What is it now?  Who knows.  But it's probably not wildly different than 1 in 3.  Maybe 1 in 4 or 1 in 5 even.  None of those numbers is a "false hope".

 

10 minutes ago, ZacKing said:

The HC peeps know what the problem is and what it would take to fix.  Yeah, it's a big job.  Yeah, it won't be an easy fix to make, but I have the utmost confidence in them.  They've got the knowledge, talent and skills to do it. 

 

Citation?  It was the devs who made this policy and the devs who moved it to phase 1 rather recently.  Doesn't really sound like they're planning to make it obsolete unless they're just keeping it a secret to surprise us.   What was that about false hopes again though?

[ZemX]

5 minutes ago, ZacKing said:

This isn't true either.  The whole "name release" routine was created back when the game was live.  As I remember it, and I could be wrong, it was run once and didn't provide anywhere near the intended result.

 

Oh good grief.  Yes, I used the word "idea" when I should have said "policy".  I was certainly not literally claiming the idea of releasing inactive names was invented by our devs.  It's been done before on plenty of MMOs.   I mean the POLICY was stated by Jimmy shortly after the HC servers opened.   That is, the specific way they intended to implement the timers here on HC.  Whether they are reusing some scripts they found in the code base or spinning their own is irrelevant.  It is their policy and they are the ones who recently advanced it to phase 1.    Not sure why they've be doing that if they planned to make said policy irrelevant.

 

Also irrelevant is the comparison to Live, which was subscription based, and which did not allow people unlimited free accounts with 1000 characters each per server.   The numbers we've been tossing around are not made up.   We don't have to guess how many names will be freed up by the policy.  They've already given us a ballpark figure for that at least once in the past and that number was roughly a third of the entire name database.

[ZacKing]

2 minutes ago, ZemX said:

Your math is... a little off there.   If a name I want is rejected it is either on a banned list or it's taken.  If it's taken it is either on an inactive character or an active one.  As noted previously, the inactive name list was around one third of the TOTAL name database back in that feedback thread.  What is it now?  Who knows.  But it's probably not wildly different than 1 in 3.  Maybe 1 in 4 or 1 in 5 even.  None of those numbers is a "false hope".

 

You're still not getting it and it certainly isn't my math that's off.  If there's a list of 1,000,000 names on the inactive list, what are the odds the name you're after is even in there to begin with and that it would get freed up so you get that name?  And get it before someone else does?  Certainly not "1 in 3"....

 

5 minutes ago, ZemX said:

Citation?  It was the devs who made this policy and the devs who moved it to phase 1 rather recently.  Doesn't really sound like they're planning to make it obsolete unless they're just keeping it a secret to surprise us.   What was that about false hopes again though?

 

Sorry but no, the name release thing was from the live days and run on the live servers, so it isn't some new bit of code the HC folk wrote entirely on their own.  There have been Dev posts discussing the naming issue before.  If you've never seen them, then I suggest you do your research so you can speak intelligently about the subject.  In previous threads on the topic, there was a discussion around why there had to be the need to log into every character to keep the name active instead of basing it on account activity and not character activity.  That way, the devs would know if an account was active and the player could contact the name owner to negotiate releasing it.  The devs explained how the account database is different/separate from the character database and it wouldn't be possible to base it off of account activity as the code stands now.  To be fair, I'm not sure I'm summarizing it exactly, but I believe that's the gist of it.  In similar threads the devs explained that changing the code to make names a combo of account and character name (character@account) like Cryptic had in their second gen engine would be a huge project.  Not impossible, but big enough that it was easier for them to re-use the old name release code from live.  The technical reasons have been discussed here before by the devs. 

[ZacKing]

8 minutes ago, ZemX said:

Oh good grief.  Yes, I used the word "idea" when I should have said "policy".  I was certainly not literally claiming the idea of releasing inactive names was invented by our devs.  It's been done before on plenty of MMOs.   I mean the POLICY was stated by Jimmy shortly after the HC servers opened.   That is, the specific way they intended to implement the timers here on HC.  Whether they are reusing some scripts they found in the code base or spinning their own is irrelevant.  It is their policy and they are the ones who recently advanced it to phase 1.    Not sure why they've be doing that if they planned to make said policy irrelevant.

 

No one has suggested this wasn't HC policy, nor do I see anyone suggesting that HC was abandoning it?  No idea where you're getting any of that from other than to try and deflect from you having you being incorrect about some stuff.

 

11 minutes ago, ZemX said:

Also irrelevant is the comparison to Live, which was subscription based, and which did not allow people unlimited free accounts with 1000 characters each per server.   The numbers we've been tossing around are not made up.   We don't have to guess how many names will be freed up by the policy.  They've already given us a ballpark figure for that at least once in the past and that number was roughly a third of the entire name database.

 

It's not really an irrelevant comparison.  It didn't produce much on live and I would bet inf it's not really going to produce much of a result here.  Sure, number wise it's going to free up more names here since people can create more characters on HC than they could on live.  That's great, assuming that the names getting freed up aren't just gibberish to begin with.  It's also completely meaningless to anyone hoping a name is in that list, but isn't.

 

[ZemX]

3 minutes ago, ZacKing said:

No one has suggested this wasn't HC policy, nor do I see anyone suggesting that HC was abandoning it?  No idea where you're getting any of that from other than to try and deflect from you having you being incorrect about some stuff.

 

I'm not incorrect.  You're missing my point or I'm not aiming it very well.  So lemme try to explain it better.  YOU are the one who said the "HC peeps" know what's involved in fixing the problem.  That's when I said these very same people are the ones who presented the name release policy in the first place, updated its terms later, spawned a whole feedback thread about it, and then actually activated the warning phase only recently.  What does this tell us?  Why would they be moving forward with a name release policy and asking us to discuss it (a discussion they had to know would be exactly THIS heated) if they thought this more comprehensive solution, which would make name release utterly irrelevant, was feasible/easy/imminent?  That is all I am saying.  Your idea that they can pull a Champions here with the name database has shown absolutely zero signs of life from the devs.  COULD they be secretly working on it and just not saying anything to avoid raising hopes?  Well sure.  They could be doing anything.  But there's no sign of it.  This name release policy is what they've talked about and actually done visible things about.

 

16 minutes ago, ZacKing said:

You're still not getting it and it certainly isn't my math that's off.  If there's a list of 1,000,000 names on the inactive list, what are the odds the name you're after is even in there to begin with and that it would get freed up so you get that name?  And get it before someone else does?  Certainly not "1 in 3"....

 

Yes, your math is certainly wrong.  Yes, the odds are certainly "around" 1 in 3.   Feel free to ask a math teacher if you don't believe me.  Claiming that because the size of the inactive pool is 700k that the odds a name I want within it is 1 in 700k is... NOT how probability works.  If you don't understand this, fine.  Not everybody gets probability.  But probability involves first establishing the sample space.  In this case, the sample space is the entire name database.  If you are denied a name (again, assuming it is not banned) then that name is somewhere in this name database.  If that database is 2 million or more names, then the pool of 700k inactive names represents a third or a fourth of that.  Something in that neighborhood.   

 

And unless you'd like to explain why you think there's an uneven distribution of desirable names within each of these pools, the odds it is in the one third sized pool are, shockingly, one in three.  Not one in seven hundred thousand.  And yeah, I see you slipped in "and get it before someone else" but we've no way to estimate that.  It is, even then however not in the same universe of probability as 1 in 700k as you suggested.

 

11 minutes ago, ZacKing said:

That's great, assuming that the names getting freed up aren't just gibberish to begin with. 

 

I just rebutted this "gibberish" idea a page or so ago.  For your benefit... one last time:  Why would they be gibberish? When you type in a name you think is cool and are told it is taken then it is either banned, being actively used, or sitting unused in the pool of names that would be freed by this policy.  Why would it be more likely that name is on an active character than an inactive one?  In fact, if it's a simple one or two word name you're looking for, odds are higher it was scooped up earlier in HC's lifetime than later.  Many of these inactive names have been inactive since the early days of HC.  The odds they are simple, desirable names is probably greater than the average name created today.  But even if they were only of the same quality as active names today, the odds would be as I've stated.  One in three or four.  Somewhere in there.

[Water]

Can't wait for  'XxghjghjghjxX'  to be freed up....

[Apogee]

1 hour ago, Water said:

Can't wait for  'XxghjghjghjxX'  to be freed up....

 

I believe that Player2 freed up that name already.  At least the odds are good that he did.

[nzer]

2 hours ago, ZemX said:

This is complete nonsense.

 

Not in the context of the argument I was responding to originally, but if you want to intentionally not attempt to understand what I'm saying I guess I can't stop you.

 

There's also an interesting wrinkle to this that didn't occur to me before because it's not practically relevant, but under GDPR at least character names would be considered personal data, meaning they actually are owned by the player rather than the devs. This wouldn't prevent the devs from deleting the name from their own records in accordance with a name release policy as far as I'm aware, but it's another conceptual hole in the argument that names should be communal because the devs are the ones who own them.

[Excraft]

1 hour ago, ZemX said:

I'm not incorrect.

 

Yes, you are.  Embarrassingly so.

 

1 hour ago, ZemX said:

YOU are the one who said the "HC peeps" know what's involved in fixing the problem.  That's when I said these very same people are the ones who presented the name release policy in the first place, updated its terms later, spawned a whole feedback thread about it, and then actually activated the warning phase only recently.  What does this tell us?  Why would they be moving forward with a name release policy and asking us to discuss it (a discussion they had to know would be exactly THIS heated) if they thought this more comprehensive solution, which would make name release utterly irrelevant, was feasible/easy/imminent?  That is all I am saying.  Your idea that they can pull a Champions here with the name database has shown absolutely zero signs of life from the devs.  COULD they be secretly working on it and just not saying anything to avoid raising hopes?  Well sure.  They could be doing anything.  But there's no sign of it.  This name release policy is what they've talked about and actually done visible things about.

 

@ZacKing is absolutely correct.  The HC people have shared technical details on this topic in multiple threads and explained the challenges in working with the separate account and character/shard databases, the difficulties in fixing/upgrading the code to change it so that names don't need to be unique and why they chose to go with the name release code instead.  That name release solution is the more simple, low hanging fruit method they are comfortable with using since they are volunteers with limited time.  I'm sure there are others who have seen the same HC posts who can confirm the same things.

 

1 hour ago, ZemX said:

Yes, the odds are certainly "around" 1 in 3.

 

The odds of a single desired name even being in a list of 700,00+ to begin with isn't "1 in 3."

 

1 hour ago, ZemX said:

I just rebutted this "gibberish" idea a page or so ago. 

 

You haven't "rebutted" diddly.  You've provided your opinion, just like everyone else.  You have as much knowledge of what is or isn't in the "inactive" name pool as everyone else does, which is none.  You're guessing. 

[PeregrineFalcon]

There are several superhero name generators out there. I remember using one that even allowed you to pick a theme for the superhero name.

[Snarky]

6 minutes ago, Excraft said:

You haven't "rebutted" diddly. 

 

[Seed22]

People on here acting like they don't have access to google at their fingertips or can't bust out a thesaurus app/actual thesaurus to try and come up with a name. I get wanting a name that someone's sitting on, but in that time you spent malding, you could of come up with what? 5 unique names?

Edited February 2 by Seed22

[Excraft]

21 minutes ago, Snarky said:

 

 

That's great!  LOL

[Bionic_Flea]

15 minutes ago, Seed22 said:

People on here acting like they don't have access to google at their fingertips or can't bust out a thesaurus app/actual thesaurus to try and come up with a name. I get wanting a name that someone's sitting on, but in that time you spent malding, you could of come up with what? 5 unique names?

 

Seed23.  Done!

 

[Snarky]

13 minutes ago, Seed22 said:

People on here acting like they don't have access to google at their fingertips or can't bust out a thesaurus app/actual thesaurus to try and come up with a name. I get wanting a name that someone's sitting on, but in that time you spent malding, you could of come up with what? 5 unique names?

I have wanted the name Badger for years.  Of course I was the first to want it…. Yeah/No.  So I started studying German about 10 months ago for various reasons.  Made a new merc AR toon to solo Redside and named him Badger.   Dachs is German for Badger.  
 

Walk a small step in the direction of theme and a whole new world opens up….  Tschuss!!!

[ZemX]

22 minutes ago, Seed22 said:

People on here acting like they don't have access to google at their fingertips or can't bust out a thesaurus app/actual thesaurus to try and come up with a name. I get wanting a name that someone's sitting on, but in that time you spent malding, you could of come up with what? 5 unique names?

 

In fact, nobody is acting like that.   We have page after of page of people "reminding" essentially nobody that thesauruses exist.  Thanks?

[wei yau]

18 hours ago, Ael said:

Exactly. Hell, this morning, I made another two toons with pretty nifty names, I think. I usually use thesaurus.com if I end up ridiculously stuck, but you know what else is often a good go-to? The names of things like candle scents and paint colors. Some of them would make fantastic character names, and many of them are already taken, I checked! There are plenty of methods and ways to name a character, and if it takes a while to think of something then so be it.

 

Hell, I've just started to make different AT versions of the same character and have had to come up with unique names for a name that I am camping myself.  

I wish it were possible for the policy to be that if you encounter a name conflict, it could check to see when was the last time this character was in-game using the same parameters as the name release.  Then, depending on the results, the name could be released for the new player to use.

 

Figure this way, it's not a mass release of names that maybe nobody actually wants and is specific only to those names that are in conflict.  This doesn't prevent anyone from logging their characters once-a-year, but neither does the current name release proposal.

 

 

Edited February 2 by wei yau

[Ironblade]

4 hours ago, Water said:

Can't wait for  'XxghjghjghjxX'  to be freed up....

 

Look.  I made a character named 594rk because 5p4rk was taken.  It just takes a little imagination.  And no, I'm not kidding.  That's the name of my level 50 electric/electric tank.

[ZemX]

2 hours ago, nzer said:

Not in the context of the argument I was responding to originally, but if you want to intentionally not attempt to understand what I'm saying I guess I can't stop you.

 

Yes, even in that context.  

 

I DID see what you were doing there.  You are attempting to equate the giving away of a name to the giving away of an entire character and all digital content.  The latter being obviously absurd and unacceptable, the former must also be absurd.  The problem here IS false equivalence.  These two things are NOT the same.  In more ways than one they are not the same.  Digital content on a character may represent hundreds or thousands of hours of gameplay effort.  Moreover, it is not unique.  No matter what you say, that digital content may be acquired by anyone and any one character's possession of it does not in any way affect for/against any other player's ability to obtain the exact same stuff.  That simply is not true for character names.  

 

It would be absurd to give an entire character away to someone else just because it isn't being used.  It would not be equally absurd to give away a name that isn't being used.  These are two completely different things.

 

2 hours ago, nzer said:

There's also an interesting wrinkle to this that didn't occur to me before because it's not practically relevant, but under GDPR at least character names would be considered personal data, meaning they actually are owned by the player rather than the devs. This wouldn't prevent the devs from deleting the name from their own records in accordance with a name release policy as far as I'm aware, but it's another conceptual hole in the argument that names should be communal because the devs are the ones who own them

 

I doubt this.  I am no lawyer, but what the GDPR and privacy laws protect is personal data which can identify a real person.  Your character name in CoH does not identify you.  I suppose if you tried using your real name and it was a sufficiently unique name that it could be used to identify you in real life, there'd be an issue.  But then the devs would probably just ban the use of that name because they specifically don't allow info that identifies real people precisely because of the complications it creates with privacy laws like this.

[Player2]

22 hours ago, wei yau said:

I've got a bunch of names, some of whom were alternates after finding that their original intended names were not available.  I've also surrendered names when a player reaches out to me and asks if I would, in those instances, I've come up with alternate names for said character.

 

I try to be flexible, and I have given up some names to people.  This kind of behavior is a kindness but should not be expected from anyone...  I'm open to it because I have plenty of alternatives to play with, but there are some characters that I'm just unwilling to rename and I will get up off my deathbed to log in and maintain them once the name release thing goes active.  So if I'm dying at some point and stop playing, my death will be on the hands of people pushing for the name release.

 

 

20 hours ago, nzer said:

I'll point out that I said I'd be curious to see how many name availability checks hit those unused names rather than active names. For all we know a majority of them are junk that no one would want anyway.

 

Agreed.  I have a number of characters that I've stopped playing and given up the names to the name release threads, but I rarely delete characters... I just rename them with a 2 or a dash at the end, because I may have a desire to revisit whatever AT/powerset combo I was working on and come up with a new identity for what I've already leveled up and start from there rather than start over at level 1.

 

 

19 hours ago, ZemX said:

If, however,  you want to lobby for an inspiration release policy, knock yourself out.  I will be the first to admit that some of the insps in my tray ARE a bit old.  I am a terrible hoarder.  If I eat them, I won't have them!  On the other hand, I bet @Luminara has better stuffs than I do.  Go steal it!

 

Inspirations should definitely come with an expiration date... or at least a "best by" date.  I can't tell you how many times I've eaten a stale one that just left me unsatisfied.

 

 

19 hours ago, kanga said:

We've all had names we want that have been taken, gotta get creative.

Gotta... as long as the creativity does not involve surrounding your character name with xX name Xx, because when I see that it hurts my soul.

 

 

18 hours ago, nzer said:

I don't think anyone needs to present evidence that the inactive names aren't a problem. You're talking about instituting a policy that will potentially cause irrevocable harm, so evidence needs to be presented that they are a problem. And I personally don't think a couple of people saying "I have trouble finding names sometimes" is evidence of anything on its own.

 

Sure, it's a problem... just like not enough oxygen is a problem.  But saying "You have too much oxygen, I want some of what your hoarding" is just as much a problem.  It's the kind of thing that will lead to arguments, hurt feelings, and ultimately people coming away from this game with a negative experience.

 

 

18 hours ago, macskull said:

I've said it in this thread, on other threads, on the Homecoming Discord, and ingame - if someone wants a name that I'm holding onto I would be more than happy to give it to them, for free. In the nearly five years I've been playing on Homecoming and the nearly six years I played before shutdown, not a single person has taken me up on that offer. Not one.

 

Can I have a look at your complete list of names?  You may have something I want.  😄 

 

18 hours ago, macskull said:

I'm not opposed to the name release policy because I would be affected. Just like you, I don't actually care if one of the names I'm holding onto gets taken. I'm opposed to the name release policy because there are players that care, because releasing names based on inactivity is arbitrary and indicates to players that we don't care about their characters, and because the time spent designing and tweaking and implementing this system would be better spent on finding a way for it to not matter in the first place.

 

It's definitely a fine line.  I also have a lot to lose in terms of number of characters and some not getting played for quite awhile... and yet I have been in support of the name release as described by the devs since they first brought it up...  which is to say, at least my 50s will be protected.  I'm willing to take my chances on the rest with the time allotted to us and also recognize that people who are entirely against it have very valid points (military deployment, life issues, etc) that may restrict them from playing for a period of time that will cause their names to become vulnerable to theft.  The reasons I support the name release is that it has been discussed from very early on but the devs have been reluctant to start until the system works as intended and because they include that protection for level 50s.  If people put their time and effort into a character and reach the end game only to take some time away and come back to find they've lost the name to such a character, I think that would cause something of a revolt.

 

Unfortunately, the only solution that would work for everyone just isn't viable... and that would be to make names non-unique.  And even this wouldn't be 100% satisfactory, because if you suddenly have dozens of Captain Awesomes running around, some will be upset that they aren't unique and the first person to take it may or may not be even more disgruntled over their ideas being infringed.  So even if they could figure out how to code to do that, there will STILL be a problem and complainers.  The best policy is the status quo.

 

 

15 hours ago, kanga said:

I personally think names should be protected. many of us have taken breaks, for over a year at times, it would be awful to come back and find that gone. I'm sure if they made it 50 with alpha slotted as the cut off and people would just complain about that too.

There will always be people to complain about any solution.  If the level 50 characters weren't exempt and all names could be freed up over time, there would still be people to complain that the time isn't short enough and that people are logging JUST frequently enough in to maintain the names they're "camping."  If 700,000 names were suddenly freed up and none of them are the ones that the complainers are looking for, they will call it a failed attempt at a solution.

 

 

5 hours ago, ZacKing said:

 

The policy as it exists now isn't going to stop anyone who wants to hoard names from hoarding names.  They can still log in every one of their sub-50 characters and keep whatever names they want. 

Pretty much.  The only thing it will do is weed out names from SOME of the players who have moved on to other games or afterlifes.  If someone is sitting on 1000 names on each shard and makes a decided effort to log in each of those characters once a year, then thems the breaks.

 

 

4 hours ago, Water said:

Can't wait for  'XxghjghjghjxX'  to be freed up....

It's mine and I'm not done with it yet and you can't have it ever.  I've leveled it up to 50 on 4 out of the 5 shards, and I'm working on it there, too!!  🤪

 

 

3 hours ago, Apogee said:

 

I believe that Player2 freed up that name already.  At least the odds are good that he did.

NEVAR!!!  But I have freed up plenty of others over my time here... and continue to do so.  In fact, I'll probably go in and clean out a ten or so more on Torch today if anyone is interested.  Keep an eye on the relevant name release thread for details.

 

 

1 hour ago, ZemX said:

 

In fact, nobody is acting like that.   We have page after of page of people "reminding" essentially nobody that thesauruses exist.  Thanks?

Thesaurus?  Which dinosaur era is that from?

[Luminara]

5 minutes ago, Player2 said:

Thesaurus?  Which dinosaur era is that from?

 

The Librasic.

[ZemX]

19 minutes ago, Player2 said:

Thesaurus?  Which dinosaur era is that from?

 

This thread is a dinosaur era already, I think. 

[Oubliette_Red]

21 hours ago, nzer said:

<snip>

I'll point out that I said I'd be curious to see how many name availability checks hit those unused names rather than active names. For all we know a majority of them are junk that no one would want anyway.

<snip>

 

Might be interesting to know that this was one of the questions asked of the Legacy Devs during a HeroCon and the answer was that of all the names released, the number of names that were claimed were in the single digit, something like 8%. I believe the second time it was run it was even less.