More Freedom for Naming

[Clave Dark 5]

1 hour ago, Major_Decoy said:

Honestly, I can think of one, maybe two occasions where a name I wanted wasn't available on the first try.

Same, but I guess it comes down to how one defines "good name," there's a lot of assumptions baked into that.

 

That said, I would really like to hear from a dev on this too, because the idea of someone devoting all the time and effort to PL a handful of toons repeatedly to 50 just to names-it to annoy people seems really unlikely:

• Did they dual-triple-quadruple box themselves?  Think of the time needed to set up all those separate accounts right there. 
• Or did they let them door sit on someone else's farm while they otherwise played?  That seems too slow. 
• What's a "good name"?  How did they determine what you think is a "good name"?  How few "good names" do you think there are or can be?
• How'd they generate the list of "good names"?  Like say they pick "_____ Darkness" as a "good name" (not even going into where they got that one too); did the troll(s) sit down and think up a lot of possible versions by themselves (more time spent now), or maybe run a "random adjective generator" and then plug those in?  If one came out "Unacceptable Darkness" is that "good" or not?  More time spent making decisions.
• Moving more quickly by bypassing making any costume or real power picks (to save time of course), still think about how long it would take to make a new character and then get them to an AE building in another zone. 
• Did they make them all brutes or whatever AT choice that's easiest to click on?  That would certainly show up for the devs, skewing the numbers.
• And think about how many people played Live vs. are here on HC, I bet Live population was much larger overall, across the years, so this name grabber would really need to be working even harder to make a dent/mess for our smaller group.
• Like cornering the market or creating a new account to come scream profanities in char before getting banned again, how long do you think they'd really keep at it all?

Maybe I'm 100% wrong and there really is a small cadre of a-holes who hate HC or are just trolling for the lulz, but this is a lot of effort for not great return.  Trolls are small-minded people who'd lose interest fairly quickly, seems to me, because this wouldn't provide the instant gratification of personally, instantly seeing the anguished and angry cries of the trolled.  That's why that one guy or two kept making new accounts to comer yell all-caps racist stuff in chat, but how long did he last?

 

Occam's Razor.  The idea feels like conspiratorial thinking to me.

[Captain Fabulous]

1 hour ago, Major_Decoy said:

Honestly, I can think of one, maybe two occasions where a name I wanted wasn't available on the first try.

 

I wish I could say the same, I have a list of ~25 character names I wasn't able to get within the first week of launch, and I'm almost guaranteed now to not get what I want on the first try unless it's something very unique or tongue-in-cheek, which is fine for the occasional offbeat character but not for general use.

I used to play with a buddy who also never had trouble with names, but he used things like B. Phase, Trollya, Fanish, Healing Cowgurl, etc., not something most people would consider desirable. There are a few characters I've gone thru over a dozen names with a thesaurus and still couldn't find one available, got fed up and wound up going in a completely different direction. Another required HOURS of research in classical mythology to find a name of an Egyptian Goddess who could control the weather. Tried at least 20 different names, all taken, I wound up having to use a little-known alternate spelling, and I'm surely the only person who is going to know who that goddess is, which absolutely defeats the point.

So yeah, be thankful you've never had to deal with this kind of bullshit. And it is pure bullshit,

[Rudra]

2 hours ago, Captain Fabulous said:

Another required HOURS of research in classical mythology to find a name of an Egyptian Goddess who could control the weather.

Now I'm curious. Horus was the Egyptian god of weather, though Tefnut was the goddess of rain and dew. So who are you referring to?

[GM Crumpet]

8 hours ago, Clave Dark 5 said:

Not to sound too flip about this, but citation needed.  And that one saying they're doing so doesn't hold too much water, it's easier to troll the forums than spend the time doing that.  Heck, why not report such a person too?  I'm just not convinced, sorry.

I can't comment on individual cases due to player confidentiality, but I am  in an interesting position to be able to see player accounts. I don't sit there for hours being nosy, but in my time helping players, investigating complaints, genericing inappropriate alts I have seen a large number of accounts with dozens, if not hundreds of unplayed level 1 characters. Name camping is a real thing.

[GM Crumpet]

5 hours ago, biostem said:

Yeah... maybe we need a hard 3-6 month limit on unplayed characters' names being freed up, regardless of level...

That would just cause more aggravation and bad feeling than it would solve I'm afraid. From my own personal playing experience, I play alts until they are fully incarnated to tier 4 on everything then park them up in a retirement SG and move on to the next alt. I have maybe 60 alts saved that way. I loved them, nurtured them, enjoyed them, but for me the thrill is maxing out a character. I will occasionally pull one out for a TF or trial if the leader asks for a specific AT or power set, but for the majority of time they are unplayed. With characters like that we deserve to keep them until we ourselves decide to free the name. We've put in the time and they've earned their retirement.

 

Disclaimer: This is my personal opinion as a player and may or may not reflect the feelings of the other members of the Homecoming Team: 🙂 

[Laucianna]

4 hours ago, GM Crumpet said:

I can't comment on individual cases due to player confidentiality, but I am  in an interesting position to be able to see player accounts. I don't sit there for hours being nosy, but in my time helping players, investigating complaints, genericing inappropriate alts I have seen a large number of accounts with dozens, if not hundreds of unplayed level 1 characters. Name camping is a real thing.

I am 100% the worst offender for it I know...

[SeraphimKensai]

Maybe it's just me, or maybe I've been lucky. My last toon I rolled was an Arsenal/Sonic Dom that I thought of a concept of a hero with a bad heart condition. I tried for the name Tachycardia and bam, got the name first time to. Sure it's a medical term so maybe it's not common knowledge given the average emphasis put on education especially in the U.S., but it was nice to get it first shot.

 

I've had a few other characters get a name right off the bat this year as well so I haven't seen naming as too much of an issue.

[Clave Dark 5]

5 hours ago, GM Crumpet said:

... level 1 characters. Name camping is a real thing.

Thank you for the info, I always appreciate hearing from you.  Level 1 makes a lot more sense than PLed level 50s.

 

Now the fun question: how come Devs don't do something about that?  😃 

[arcane]

11 hours ago, Major_Decoy said:

Honestly, I can think of one, maybe two occasions where a name I wanted wasn't available on the first try.

Same. You have to think outside the box of Lady Fire and Ice Girl.

[UltraAlt]

On 2/28/2024 at 7:10 PM, Gat-720 said:

I was recreating a character I made in Champions Online but when I typed the name in CoH it told me the name is already used and I was so disappointed and tried to compromise. I finally did it but I just wish I didn't have to go through that hassle.

 

So I'm wondering how many MMORPGs that you have played on if you think that this is something that doesn't occur on all of them.

 

The more common or obvious your thought for a character name is, the more likely it is that it will be taken.

Of course, there is also always the thing where another player saw you playing the character in another game and though "Hey, that name is cool" and then they use it in a game where the name wasn't taken. That happens as well.

 

You can always put an x (or another historical gamer "clan" tag) before and after the name or put a number after it, or change characters around (upper and lowers of similar looking characters or go the Freakshow route with numbers for letters).

[biostem]

8 hours ago, GM Crumpet said:

That would just cause more aggravation and bad feeling than it would solve I'm afraid.

I certainly respect your zeal for and value you place on your characters - you won't get any disagreement from me in that regard.  That being said, asking someone to log into them once every 90-180 days to retain their name isn't, IMHO, too much to ask, especially since, (again IMO), for every one of you, there's probably many more that simply PL or otherwise got to 50, then for all intents and purposes, abandoned said characters.  Personally, I use thesaurus.com, rhymezone.com, or other such resources to avoid the situation entirely, but others may want something more straightforward, so some sort of middle-ground, where characters that aren't actively being played, (including 50s), should be subject to having their names freed up...

[Lockely]

1 hour ago, UltraAlt said:

 

So I'm wondering how many MMORPGs that you have played on if you think that this is something that doesn't occur on all of them.

 

 

I've played nearly every MMO on the market at some point in the last 25 years, and a ton of MMO-adjacent / 'lobby-based multiplayer with custom character' games. Most of the newer ones these days go by the unique Global name model (often with a discriminator number to avoid overlap, i.e. Lockely#1234) and character names are no longer unique.

We're halfway there with Globals already, but I don't know how robust the system would be to fallback on Globals for chat channels instead of unique character names. Ideally, every character has a unique numerical identifier server side anyway so the database shouldn't 'care' what's in the name field, but with these old games, who knows? Would it be weird to see another Lockely? Sure! But I think I'd make that compromise over having hundreds of names sitting on accounts un-used for literal years.

[Oubliette_Red]

12 hours ago, Clave Dark 5 said:

Same, but I guess it comes down to how one defines "good name," there's a lot of assumptions baked into that.

 

I just checked and 'Name Hoarder' is available on every server.

 

:D

[Oubliette_Red]

On 3/1/2024 at 5:51 PM, Glacier Peak said:

Another color of red and Knight?

 

 

Try these

 

You missed one of my personal favourites: Sanguine.

 

[sbloyd]

Or lean further into blood.  Scabrous Knight, perhaps?  

[Kaigai Sticky]

16 hours ago, Major_Decoy said:

Yeah, I was trying to create Tina The Bodysculptress myself.

 

I know that pain too well my friend.

[Kaigai Sticky]

Getting to lvl 6 you get to keep the name for an entire 365 and anyone that's devoted to this game easily has enough time. I personally brainstorm on names for quite a while, I'm a bit of a perfectionist when it comes to matching a concept and name together.

 

[UltraAlt]

5 hours ago, Lockely said:

Most of the newer ones these days go by the unique Global name model (often with a discriminator number to avoid overlap, i.e. Lockely#1234) and character names are no longer unique.

 

Seems to be a way to get around the issue.

I have a feeling that it can't be implemented in CoH due to how the coding is setup.

 

That being said, the global name is unique. At this point, players aren't picky about their global name. I think would likely remain the case since the global names isn't "forward facing" in-game.

 

Personally, I would still find it hampering my enjoyment to be on a team filled with characters that all have the same name.

 

5 hours ago, Lockely said:

We're halfway there with Globals already, but I don't know how robust the system would be to fallback on Globals for chat channels instead of unique character names.

 

You can create global channels which use your global.

For years before the sunset, the Repeat Offenders used global chat channels to organize the multi-server supergroups - that is to say the Repeat Offenders had multiple supergroups on different servers and when it was time to gather up to run that Supergroup there would be an announcement on the channel. Players also used it to recruit during times when there was no active sanctioned supergroup content running. So it was basically a network of players in the game that could move from server-to-server to pull characters to help with/join practically any content that a player wanted to recruit for.

 

5 hours ago, Lockely said:

But I think I'd make that compromise over having hundreds of names sitting on accounts un-used for literal years.

 

Honestly, I have no issue with crafting a name, but I understand that there are those that find it very difficult to do so.

[Rudra]

There's a reason why I prefer CoX's naming paradigm over say CO's even though CO lets me use any name I want even if someone else already has it. Here in CoX, if I see Capt. Starfinder and want to send him/her/them/it a message but (s)he/they/it have already left my field of view, I can just type /t Capt. Starfinder and send that character a message. Back on CO, sure I got whatever name I wanted, but to send someone a message that passed my field of view and is now gone from it, I have to do a search for Capt. Starfinder to find that player's global name, assuming there is only one Capt. Starfinder on at that point in time otherwise I have to wonder which Capt. Starfinder that is running around in the game I actually want to talk to, and then type /t Capt. Starfinder@Pandora'sBoxPlayer to send that person a message. So just sending someone a tell that they have an impressive costume design or an enjoyable bio is a royal pain in the rear.

 

So yeah, while I would like to make use of character names I used back on Live but other players on the server beat me to for the characters I want to bring back, I don't want to have to deal with trying to figure out which Munchkin Starchild or Crimson or whatever from however many of those names are currently on is the one I want to talk to. Nor do I want to have to type in <character name>@<global name> every time I try to talk to someone. Come up with a better means of everyone getting the character name they want that isn't requiring sending tells to All Father Odin@IAmTheMightyNorsePantheon, and I would probably be more open to shared names.

 

Now, expanding the character limit by 5 or so for names and/or adding more special characters to allowed characters? I'm all for that.

[Player2]

16 minutes ago, Rudra said:

expanding the character limit by 5 or so for names and/or adding more special characters to allowed characters? I'm all for that.

 

I would definitely like to see both.  The one "special character" limit is too much.

 

I mean, if I was trying to make Ms. T. Knight right now, I'd be out of luck... or I'd have to drop a period and be either Ms T. Knight or Ms. T Knight, and both choices irk me for being blatantly incorrect.  I've also come up one or two letters short on some name ideas in the past and just abandoned the character concept altogether because of it.

[GM Crumpet]

6 hours ago, Player2 said:

 

I would definitely like to see both.  The one "special character" limit is too much.

 

I mean, if I was trying to make Ms. T. Knight right now, I'd be out of luck... or I'd have to drop a period and be either Ms T. Knight or Ms. T Knight, and both choices irk me for being blatantly incorrect.  I've also come up one or two letters short on some name ideas in the past and just abandoned the character concept altogether because of it.

I wouldn't worry too much as Ms T Knight wouldn't survive long before becoming Generic 405674 quite quickly 😛 

[Player2]

3 hours ago, GM Crumpet said:

I wouldn't worry too much as Ms T Knight wouldn't survive long before becoming Generic 405674 quite quickly 😛 

Was just an example to illustrate how the one period limitation is too limiting.  I wouldn't want to give away anything usable before I get a chance to claim it for my own.

[GM Crumpet]

6 hours ago, Player2 said:

Was just an example to illustrate how the one period limitation is too limiting.  I wouldn't want to give away anything usable before I get a chance to claim it for my own.

I was just being silly, I know you wouldn't do that 🙂 

[ZacKing]

On 2/28/2024 at 7:25 PM, Rudra said:

In Champions Online, your global chat handle is part of your character name, so as long as you don't try to have the same name on 2 or more of your own characters, you will never run into a name taken situation. (However, you can run into situations where everyone on your 5-person team has the same name, though I've only seen up to triplicated names there.) In City of Heroes, your global chat handle is not part of your character name. This makes it much simpler to send each other messages, but it also means only 1 character per server can have a specific name version.

 

STO does the same thing as CO where the name is a combo of global handle and character name.  It's not hard at all to send messages to someone.  You can click on their name and select the option to send a PM.  No need to type the whole thing out.

[ZacKing]

On 3/5/2024 at 5:58 AM, GM Crumpet said:

I can't comment on individual cases due to player confidentiality, but I am  in an interesting position to be able to see player accounts. I don't sit there for hours being nosy, but in my time helping players, investigating complaints, genericing inappropriate alts I have seen a large number of accounts with dozens, if not hundreds of unplayed level 1 characters. Name camping is a real thing.

 

Aren't you able to see how active those accounts are?  If someone has all those unplayed level 1 alts lying around but are still playing daily, they can be contacted by other players to negotiate releasing a name.  If it's an account that hasn't been logged into in the last 5 years, that's a different story IMO.

 

I know it's a huge project for a small volunteer team to re-do the code here to allow for names to be non-unique, but I personally think it would be great to have for the future because everyone will be better off getting the names they want.  Hopefully the HC people will address it at some point down the road.  I can live without new missions and costume pieces while they tackle this.  I can also understand why they don't.