More Freedom for Naming

[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. 

[Rudra]

51 minutes ago, ZacKing said:

 

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.

You can click on their name if they comment in chat or you can click them if they are standing there. You can't do either if they aren't chatting or present to click. Which is what I routinely ran into on CO. I see someone, their appearance is interesting, I start examining them, and they are gone before I can send them a message. Or they bound off after finishing dealing with the contact they are at while I am reading their bio before I can message them. I have lots of experience of having to do a search for a character name, realize there are 4 of them online, trying to figure out which of the 4 I just saw/read, and then have to type out their full character+global name because they just aren't commenting in chat or in my vicinity to click and message.

[ZacKing]

10 minutes ago, Rudra said:

You can click on their name if they comment in chat or you can click them if they are standing there. You can't do either if they aren't chatting or present to click. Which is what I routinely ran into on CO. I see someone, their appearance is interesting, I start examining them, and they are gone before I can send them a message. Or they bound off after finishing dealing with the contact they are at while I am reading their bio before I can message them. I have lots of experience of having to do a search for a character name, realize there are 4 of them online, trying to figure out which of the 4 I just saw/read, and then have to type out their full character+global name because they just aren't commenting in chat or in my vicinity to click and message.

 

Not going to lie, I don't see this as a real problem.  It's an isolated use case and an edge case.  For the majority of people who are using LFG or other chat channels to communicate and form teams and stuff, being able to click on their name in chat to send out invites and communicate isn't a problem.  If this is that big of an issue, maybe add the character global and character name in the character bio screen so you can message them about their costume.

[Random Axis]

On 3/1/2024 at 6:50 PM, biostem said:

I'm just imaging some up-and-coming mutant in the marvel Universe, whose mutation is actually to have 1 eye in the middle of their head, being pissed that "Cyclops" is already taken...

This is part of the backstory for my bird Arch/TA blaster. "What do you mean I can't be called Hawkeye? I'm literally a hawk!"