Name Purge

[Lunar Ronin]

On 5/4/2024 at 5:05 PM, Bionic_Flea said:

I also don't want to see Bionic Flea(@Zacking) or Bionic Flea(@Snarky) either!  And that is exactly the point of this suggestion.  So that everyone can be Bionic Flea if they wanted to.  No thanks.  There's only one me.

 

 

I remember back on live when Matt Miller brought this up as a possibility on the old blue boards and asked if people would be okay with it.  People overwhelmingly shot it down, saying things like "There is only one Superman, one Batman, and one Spider-Man."

 

Fifteen years later, we now have at least four Supermen, at least three Batmen, and a gazillion Spider-Men running around in comic books.  Seems to be working okay for them.

[ivanhedgehog]

If the name purge is popular maybe it should extend to super group names. All of those great sg names being squatted on.

[Bionic_Flea]

1 hour ago, Lunar Ronin said:

Fifteen years later, we now have at least four Supermen, at least three Batmen, and a gazillion Spider-Men running around in comic books.  Seems to be working okay for them.

 

I don't like what they've done with that either.  *shrug*

[Ukase]

I find it interesting there's this term "squatting" associated with people creating characters specifically to get certain names. And then not playing the characters. 

I completely get someone going about their day, and watching a cop show or listening to the radio, or even hanging out with friends or family, and then they have this epiphany about a name - and immediately log in and create a character with that name on all the servers. 

The part I don't see is them returning to that character every 30 days, or whatever the policy is to ensure they keep it. 

If you're talking about 1 person doing this for multiple characters, that seems like an awful lot of logging in and out. There's no point in having a great name unless you're playing the character. But, I am reminded constantly that most folks don't think like I do. 

In my mind, there's only one *ic Flea. 
If I did see an @Snarky with some version of *ic Flea, I would know Snarky's account got hacked - although, I suppose it is true that both Snarky and Flea are inclined to suck blood. I mean, we all know that's what vampires do, but not everyone is aware that Fleas drink blood - it's why they bite. Still, as likable as the two players are, it would be bad form for anyone to just take the name they're known by without permission.  

Conversely, I would find it amusing if it were an homage made with permission. I have had someone ask me for permission to use my name within their name - their version of my ice/ice blaster - whatever that looks like. I think it was "St1tch's UK453 or something like that.

It seems as if we have two camps - those who care and those who don't. I'm of mixed opinion, as for me it depends on the specifics of the policy and how it's implemented. 
As I understand it, Champions would have folks going around like Ukase@Ukase or Flabbergasted@Apachefog. Or something like that. For email, that's fine. But for our silver comic age heroes to be known as such...I wouldn't enjoy that. 

I don't know what the solution is - but I don't think we need one, as there isn't a problem. The names work. You type it in, and if someone else has it, you can't have it. What's wrong with that? We have lots of words we can use. We have like a dozen different ways to say the same thing. Maybe more. I get that some names would be great to get. I do! I haven't always gotten my first choice. And I've renamed characters to something stupid just so I could play a new character with the better name. So, I understand the frustration, but I don't think it's THAT important. Yet. 

We should be thinking about what a suitable solution will be, when we have 10-20K players on at the same time. Until then, not sure it's really a problem. 


 

[ZacKing]

On 5/4/2024 at 5:05 PM, Bionic_Flea said:

I also don't want to see Bionic Flea(@Zacking) or Bionic Flea(@Snarky) either!  And that is exactly the point of this suggestion.  So that everyone can be Bionic Flea if they wanted to.  No thanks.  There's only one me.

 

Well I can only speak for myself, but you're in no danger of me ever naming a character "Bionic Flea".  And even if every player in the game created a character named Bionic Flea, you'd still be you and there's still only one of you. 

 

On 5/4/2024 at 7:42 PM, wjrasmussen said:

It is easy.  WHo is going to do the work mr armchair expert?

 

Certainly not you, that's for sure.  You'll also note I wasn't making demands that anything should or shouldn't get done, or trying to dictate what HC should be working on.  So relax, I was commenting on a statement that didn't make sense in that a database wipe wouldn't be necessary.  I understand this is a volunteer group working on a passion project and it's up to HC to decide what they want to work on.  Feel free to dismount your high horse now. 

[twozerofoxtrot]

4 hours ago, Ukase said:

There's no point in having a great name unless you're playing the character.

 

While I personally agree with you (not just here but throughout your post)...

 

4 hours ago, Ukase said:

You type it in, and if someone else has it, you can't have it. What's wrong with that?

 

...the policies that HC has proposed (and currently on hold for implementation) are specifically designed to offer character names from players who may have abandoned the game.

 

So really, there is no point in that level 30 with 1000 days unplayed character retaining that name. By your own logic.

Edited May 6 by twozerofoxtrot
Lmao spelling

[ZemX]

10 hours ago, ZacKing said:

So relax, I was commenting on a statement that didn't make sense in that a database wipe wouldn't be necessary. 

 

Yeah, I don't think the database is the blocking issue either.  That's probably the easiest part.

 

It's all the places in the spaghetti code of server and client that pass names around and how those names are handled by the UI that's the problem.  To really do this feature right, you also want nice things like auto-complete to allow you to select the "right" Super Dude when you type in that name and find out there are ten Super Dude's online right now.  It'd also be nice if the game could display the global in a muted color or not at all by player preference (maybe mouse-over or something like that).  Or only display the fully qualified name in global chats or in teams where there's more than one person using the base name.  

 

The fact the team that invented this game waited until their NEXT game to implement this feature tells me most of what I need to know.   The reasons for that were likely both due to technical challenges AND not dealing with the social blowback of changing an existing system which could be popular with some and not with others.

[Excraft]

On 5/4/2024 at 5:05 PM, Bionic_Flea said:

I also don't want to see Bionic Flea(@Zacking) or Bionic Flea(@Snarky) either!  And that is exactly the point of this suggestion.  So that everyone can be Bionic Flea if they wanted to.  No thanks.  There's only one me.

 

Right so I guess it's only other people who are name camping then. 🤣

[Ravenplume]

You know, I do recall there was a name release once back on live.  Wouldn't call it a purge, since if no one logged in on long idle characters, they still had their names, but were no longer subject to yoinking.

 

I also seem to remember it was a pretty successful event and don't even remember any major butthurt and raging on the forums over it either.  I was pleased to finally be able to drop the hyphen from Twilight-Vixen at last (one of my oldest characters) and make her properly Twilight Vixen.

 

I did consider changing Honey Bree to Honeybee (which had been taken at the time I made Bree, but Honeybree had grown on me and she kept the name.

Edited May 6 by Ravenplume

[Oubliette_Red]

21 minutes ago, Ravenplume said:

You know, I do recall there was a name release once back on live.  Wouldn't call it a purge, since if no one logged in on long idle characters, they still had their names, but were no longer subject to yoinking.

 

I also seem to remember it was a pretty successful event and don't even remember any major butthurt and raging on the forums over it either.  I was pleased to finally be able to drop the hyphen from Twilight-Vixen at last (one of my oldest characters) and make her properly Twilight Vixen.

 

I did consider changing Honeybree to Honeybee (which had been taken at the time I made Bree, but Honeybree had grown on me and she kept the name.

 

The Legacy devs ran the name release twice and according to one of them when asked at one of the HeroCon events, stated that of all the names released (I can't recall how many it was), that on the 1st run less than 10% of the released names had been reclaimed, on the second run it was even lower.

 

It would be interesting to know, when/if the HC devs get around to running their name release code, what percentage of names released are actually claimed.

 

[Bionic_Flea]

1 hour ago, Excraft said:

Right so I guess it's only other people who are name camping then.

 

There's an emoji, so I guess this was a joke.  But I am not name camping anything.  I make a new character, play it to 50 +3, and then make a new one and repeat.  Lots of Fleas.

 

So I don't know who is name camping.  I don't think it's cool for people to make a bunch of level 1s to camp the name.  But I also don't like any of the suggestions made to fix that more than the Dev's proposed change.

[ivanhedgehog]

1 hour ago, Bionic_Flea said:

 

There's an emoji, so I guess this was a joke.  But I am not name camping anything.  I make a new character, play it to 50 +3, and then make a new one and repeat.  Lots of Fleas.

 

So I don't know who is name camping.  I don't think it's cool for people to make a bunch of level 1s to camp the name.  But I also don't like any of the suggestions made to fix that more than the Dev's proposed change.

So the flea circus is in full swing? Do you have Flea Willy the water controller?

[Bionic_Flea]

Nope.  They are all "______ic Flea", ie.  Bionic, Atomic, Chaotic, Strategic, etc.,

[Excraft]

1 hour ago, Bionic_Flea said:

There's an emoji, so I guess this was a joke.  But I am not name camping anything.  I make a new character, play it to 50 +3, and then make a new one and repeat.  Lots of Fleas.

 

Yes, it was mostly a joke.  However, going by the definition proposed by many people here, what you're doing kind of is name camping.  No one else can use the names you're using.  You have names other people may want, but can't have because you've created them first.  Some are even advocating for 50s to be included in the list too.  Unless you're playing every single one of your 50 +3 characters every single day, they're just parked and camping a name someone else may want to actively play more frequently than you do.  Not saying I agree with that assessment at all and I don't think you're doing anything wrong, but that's what quite a few folk here are using as the bar to define what "camping" is.  I just find it interesting that it always seems to be the other guy who is the one camping. 

Edited May 6 by Excraft

[Bionic_Flea]

I have way too many to play them all everyday and I keep making more.  Hello, my name is Bionic Flea and I'm an altoholic  (New Flea name!)

 

But I do log them all in periodically to either play them or at least move day jobs, pick up sales & purchases, and put down some new sales.  So under the announced policy I would be covered as a 50, but I would also be covered by using them every few months or so.

[ivanhedgehog]

2 hours ago, Bionic_Flea said:

Nope.  They are all "______ic Flea", ie.  Bionic, Atomic, Chaotic, Strategic, etc.,

awww. so no "the wicked shall flea"

[Player2]

7 hours ago, Bionic_Flea said:

 

There's an emoji, so I guess this was a joke.  But I am not name camping anything.  I make a new character, play it to 50 +3, and then make a new one and repeat.  Lots of Fleas.

 

So I don't know who is name camping.  I don't think it's cool for people to make a bunch of level 1s to camp the name.  But I also don't like any of the suggestions made to fix that more than the Dev's proposed change.

I am name camping the name Name Camper.  I will log in every 30 days to protect it... until I don't.  Until then no one can have it.

[ZacKing]

16 hours ago, Bionic_Flea said:

I have way too many to play them all everyday and I keep making more.  Hello, my name is Bionic Flea and I'm an altoholic  (New Flea name!)

 

But I do log them all in periodically to either play them or at least move day jobs, pick up sales & purchases, and put down some new sales.  So under the announced policy I would be covered as a 50, but I would also be covered by using them every few months or so.

 

It is kind of interesting to see how there's people here complaining that people with sub-level 50s doing the exact same thing are "name campers", but you doing this is ok and no one blinks and eye.  I mean, the arguments being made in these threads is that you really aren't using your characters whereas someone else wanting the name might play it much more frequently, so why not release the names?

 

Not saying you're doing anything wrong at all as I don't think you are, just commenting that the arguments being made for what is or isn't camping seems highly dependent on the person.  It does seem like its always the other guy who's wrong. 

[ZacKing]

On 5/6/2024 at 9:26 AM, ZemX said:

The fact the team that invented this game waited until their NEXT game to implement this feature tells me most of what I need to know.   The reasons for that were likely both due to technical challenges AND not dealing with the social blowback of changing an existing system which could be popular with some and not with others.

 

Not sure that's the case.  I don't think that the name thing was even a major driver behind developing the new engine.  There were quite a lot of substantial technology upgrades made to the Cryptic engine, how names were handled was just one among them. 

 

As for social blowback, I can't really say what the result would be.  I imagine there's some who will complain about it, but there's always someone complaining about something.  People can already copy costumes and biographies from other players they like and I don't see anyone mentioning that.  Personally, if someone has the same name as my characters, go for it.  It doesn't take anything away from my enjoyment of the game.  Others I'm sure will feel differently and that's fine. 

 

I very well could be wrong as its been a long while since I've read the HC folk posts on the topic, but as I remember it, there's not a great link between the tables for account info and character info on the individual shards.  There would need to be all new tables built to accommodate that and to make it so that inactivity could be based on account activity instead of at the character level.  It sounded to me like HC folk understand what would be required to do the kind of work to make names non-unique and are fully capable of doing it, but its more than they want to take on in their spare time given this is a volunteer effort.  I don't blame them that at all as I get that this is a passion project for them.  I'd rather they focus on what's fun for them to do so they don't get burned out. 

[Damoklese]

Eh.. the way I see it.. they need to purge the names from people who arent playing them.   Regularly.

 

If the unused names are always being freed up, then if you lose a name, you can always find a new one when you decide to play that character again, right? 

Isnt the insult being tossed around that people need to "get more creative" and "quit whining".. well.. that applies to you too.  Sorry you lost your hold on Captain Squatthrust. Now quit whining and get creative.

 

Maybe a compromise could be that the names of level 50 characters that have been logged in in the last 6 months are safe..  you could also maybe give players the option the "secure" 5 names in their first 5 character slots or something, just to give non-level 50 characters a way to hold onto names that are important to them if they plan on going on hiatus for a while.

 

But lets quit being so douchey about this issue ok?  Everyone playing this game is in it to have a good time and live out some superhero fantasies.  Let people have a chance at a great name that fits their character just right.  Spread the fun around. You will get good names too.  I promise.

[UltraAlt]

1 hour ago, Damoklese said:

Maybe a compromise could be that the names of level 50 characters that have been logged in in the last 6 months are safe..

 

The way it is now - if the system went live as it is - , characters above level 5 that have been logged in within a year are safe.

 

But I agree with you that 50's should not be exempt.

 

The Name Release Policy framework is here:

 

 

1 hour ago, Damoklese said:

you could also maybe give players the option the "secure" 5 names in their first 5 character slots or something

 

There are plenty of players with multiple accounts.

 

1 hour ago, Damoklese said:

Isnt the insult being tossed around that people need to "get more creative"...

 

It isn't an insult.

It is, in fact, a suggestion that works when it is implemented.

 

Here is another suggestion: type "character name generator" into a browser and look at what comes up as results.

And another type "game character name generator" into your browser.

Maybe if you really want to get creative with the browser search try "superhero character name generator".

There are even "pulp hero name generators".

 

The problem isn't that there aren't resources to help players find "good" names.

This all mainly comes down to some players wanting a particular name ... and, far too often, the comes down to trying to use a name that has been copyrighted or trademarked. 

 

1 hour ago, Damoklese said:

just to give non-level 50 characters a way to hold onto names that are important to them if they plan on going on hiatus for a while.

 

Who determines for how long and how many?

Is up to a year not playing them enough of a hiatus? (as in the current plan if the system was to go live for characters above level 5)

 

1 hour ago, Damoklese said:

But lets quit being so douchey about this issue ok?

 

This however is a direct insult to people and is intentionally so.

It isn't necessary.

 

 

[UltraAlt]

On 5/6/2024 at 5:25 PM, Bionic_Flea said:

Hello, my name is Bionic Flea and I'm an altoholic

[Skyhawke]

I also dislike the way Champions did their naming convention and you had multiple people with the same name and their @accountname behind it. The intricacies of when to cut off name saves and the like? Such a slippery slope. I do think just level 5 and a year is a bit excessive, but I also think marking a certain number of your 50s as "untouchable" is a nice idea. I've got multiple 50s and there's a handful that I'm especially fond of. Protecting say...5 of all your characters on a server would be a nice compromise. 

 

Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go make Captain Squatthrust. 😁