Name Purge

[Erratic1]

17 hours ago, Frostbiter said:

I had the misfortune of only getting my namesake on two out of the five servers.

 

Not a complaint, but why on Earth would you want/need the same name across every server?

[Frostbiter]

1 minute ago, Erratic1 said:

 

Not a complaint, but why on Earth would you want/need the same name across every server?

 

Why would someone else need a name that I clearly use as my own and have since 2005?

 

 

Edited April 19 by Frostbiter

[Erratic1]

9 minutes ago, Frostbiter said:

 

Why would someone else need a name that I clearly use as my own and have since 2005?

 

 

 

Amazingly, my first name is shared by tens if not hundreds of thousands of people. That does not make it any less my name. 

 

My father and I shared the same first and last name. He generally went by the diminutive form and I by the full form to distinguish ourselves. I know he once, in business, had to call someone in the same profession who had the same name. Given the relative rarity of my surname, that was pretty amazing. And yet for all those people who do have both the same first and last name, I am pretty sure we each feel it is our name and don't feel such an ownership stake as to need to own it in every context. 

 

I am just not seeing why you are feel such ownership of what happens on servers you don't play on. But hey, maybe you do actually play on all servers. In any case, you don't have to justify to me. I just see it as oddly possessive. 

Edited April 19 by Erratic1

[Frostbiter]

5 minutes ago, Erratic1 said:

 

Amazingly, my first name is shared by tens if not hundreds of thousands of people. That does not make it any less my name. 

 

My father and I shared the same first and last name. He generally went by the diminutive form and I by the full form to distinguish ourselves. I know he once, in business, had to call someone in the same profession who had the same name. Given the relative rarity of my surname, that was pretty amazing. And yet for all those people who do have both the same first and last name, I am pretty sure we each feel it is our name and don't feel such an ownership stake as to need to own it in every context. 

 

I am just not seeing why you are feel such ownership of what happens on servers you don't play on. But hey, maybe you do actually play on all servers. In any case, you don't have to justify to me. I just see it as oddly possessive. 

 

I already knew I didn't have to justify myself to you, that's why I didn't.  Explaining anything is a courtesy. We aren't talking about real names here. But if I wanted to transfer to another server, I should be able to do that without having to worry about keeping the name I've played this game under for years.

 

Edited April 19 by Frostbiter

[Haijinx]

Yay another name purge thread!

[Erratic1]

 

Not going to be upset if the name goes back into circulation. Its been cose to 5 years since it was last played?

[Excraft]

It's mildly entertaining that several of the people in this thread complaining about "their name" being taken are the same people who vehemently lambast others for "not being original" enough with character creation.  What happened to being "creative" and coming up with a different name?  I guess these kinds of things only work one way.

[Oubliette_Red]

57 minutes ago, Excraft said:

It's mildly entertaining that several of the people in this thread complaining about "their name" being taken are the same people who vehemently lambast others for "not being original" enough with character creation.  What happened to being "creative" and coming up with a different name?  I guess these kinds of things only work one way.

 

Eh, I can see their point when it's their "signature" name that they've used for decades across multiple games. It's just "that one name" that they define themselves with as a player. I managed to get my namesake on all the servers, never gotten an email from anyone on the servers I don't generally play on and I may just delete three of them since unlike Legacy, I don't really play on multiple servers anymore.

 

[kelika2]

3 hours ago, Frostbiter said:

Why would someone else need a name that I clearly use as my own and have since 2005?

How they hell were they suppost to know that?

[Frostbiter]

27 minutes ago, kelika2 said:

How they hell were they suppost to know that?

 

Please. As has been covered already, one or more people went through the old forums and reserved every name they could.

[Troo]

My original City of global was 'Gy' and when we went to a three letter minimum 'Gray', 'Guy', 'Gee' were unavailable.

So I switched to 'Tru' who was my Misfit Villains base raider that folks recognized easily enough.

'Troo' was always a level locked pvp specialist for Siren's Call.

 

After shutdown and when I got to play again, 'Tru' was unavailable. Some dirty rat had coveted the name from live and snatched it up. (I do not know if this is troo)

So same name different spelling it was.

[Excraft]

2 hours ago, Oubliette_Red said:

Eh, I can see their point when it's their "signature" name that they've used for decades across multiple games. It's just "that one name" that they define themselves with as a player. I managed to get my namesake on all the servers, never gotten an email from anyone on the servers I don't generally play on and I may just delete three of them since unlike Legacy, I don't really play on multiple servers anymore.

 

Oh I understand that bit just fine.  I do find it interesting and entertaining that those vehemently lambasting others over their supposed lack of creativity can't focus their own vast pools of creativity on finding another name they like.  I don't think a day has gone by since this whole discussion about purging names began that I haven't come across another player with a name that I personally thought was cool and clever.  There's still plenty of great names to be had.  The few with boundless creativity need to to use that creativity themselves and find something else. 

[ZemX]

1 hour ago, Frostbiter said:

Please. As has been covered already, one or more people went through the old forums and reserved every name they could.

 

If you're referring to the post linked by @PeregrineFalcon earlier in this thread, what it actually says is that they grabbed "a large number of desirable names" and then later got mistaken for "famous" live players.  The thing is, "desirable" names are desirable because they are simple and thematic.  Maybe you've heard of Superman?  Batman? Wonder Woman?  If someone grabs "Arcanaville" who isn't actually Arcanaville from the old forums then I'd be suspicious.  But as @Troo's post illustrates, I am not surprised if names as simple as Gy, Guy, Gee, and Tru were taken, entirely independently by people who just thought them up on their own.  

 

Sorry to say, but I'd think the same of "Frostbiter".   I used to have "Fissioneer" on a rad controller on Live but it was gone by the time I joined HC.  I never imagined anyone scraped the old forums and found it in my old .sig.  It's a simple, radiation-themed, name construction.  I wasn't surprised it was taken.  I was more surprised by the ones that weren't.  

[PeregrineFalcon]

1 minute ago, ZemX said:

If you're referring to the post linked by @PeregrineFalcon earlier in this thread, what it actually says is that they grabbed "a large number of desirable names" and then later got mistaken for "famous" live players.  The thing is, "desirable" names are desirable because they are simple and thematic.

"What it actually says..." Please stop with the hyper-semantic nonsense.

 

They clearly were implying that they made a large number of characters with the names of famous live players. How exactly would someone be mistaken for a famous live player? You'd fly around in Atlas Park with a character with that name above your character's head. There's just no other way that someone would be mistake for a famous live player.

 

It's funny that everyone that wasn't you that read that post understood that.

 

Let me quote that post again here:

"I was fortunate enough to grab a good number of desirable names when HC first launched, and on at least one occasion have been mistaken for a "famous" player from Live because I had "their" name. The argument could be made that this other player is "more deserving" of that name than I am, although I would dismiss that argument on general principle. Had they loved this game as much as I do, they would have been searching for info during the blip like I was, and would have found out about HC in time to log in and grab that name. They didn't. It's a hard knock life, for them."

 

Translation: I deliberately logged on to Homecoming, made a ton of characters with all of the famous names that I could remember from the live servers (or possibly looked at a copy of the old forums in case memory wasn't enough), and then flew one of the characters around Atlas Park while saying to myself "ha, ha, I got your name".

 

So debate all you want about whether or when or which level, but understand that at least some of the people who are against this are against it because they are deliberately hoarding names and they don't want you to have them, and this has been confirmed by a GM.

[Frostbiter]

44 minutes ago, ZemX said:

 

If you're referring to the post linked by @PeregrineFalcon earlier in this thread, what it actually says is that they grabbed "a large number of desirable names" and then later got mistaken for "famous" live players.  The thing is, "desirable" names are desirable because they are simple and thematic.  Maybe you've heard of Superman?  Batman? Wonder Woman?  If someone grabs "Arcanaville" who isn't actually Arcanaville from the old forums then I'd be suspicious.  But as @Troo's post illustrates, I am not surprised if names as simple as Gy, Guy, Gee, and Tru were taken, entirely independently by people who just thought them up on their own.  

 

Sorry to say, but I'd think the same of "Frostbiter".   I used to have "Fissioneer" on a rad controller on Live but it was gone by the time I joined HC.  I never imagined anyone scraped the old forums and found it in my old .sig.  It's a simple, radiation-themed, name construction.  I wasn't surprised it was taken.  I was more surprised by the ones that weren't.  

 

How desirable is the name Frostbiter? Even I have to admit it's not the best name I could have come up with. It was my first hero on the Live servers that I made to just try the game out and it stuck. Be honest, how desirable is it really?

[macskull]

Ooh, I love these threads and I'm bored so here are just a few reasons the proposed name release policy is A Bad Thing.

 

1. It doesn't actually address the stated issue of "name camping." Getting to level 6 and spending a few minutes once a year to maintain "activity" on a roster of characters takes very little effort.
2. The players who are holding their breath and crossing their fingers and waiting for a name to get released will more likely than not end up disappointed when the name they want doesn't magically become available.
3. By releasing names used by existing players we are telling those existing players that they do not matter.
4. Any time-based inactivity rule is simply an arbitrary cutoff. Why does it have to be 365 days? Why not a month? Why not a day?
5. A player who has left the game and later returns to find the name of their favorite character has been taken is likely to simply log off again and not return. Meanwhile, the player who snatched that name up could have simply found another name in the first place.
6. The "players who don't want to give up their names are entitled" argument sucks. You want their name released so you can have it. How is that not where the entitlement lies?

 

As always, I'll close with the disclosure that I am sitting on some fun, non-basic names, but just like back on live I am more than willing to consider releasing one to someone if they ask. Over the last 17 years someone has asked for one of my character names zero times.

[PeregrineFalcon]

13 minutes ago, Frostbiter said:

How desirable is the name Frostbiter? Even I have to admit it's not the best name I could have come up with. It was my first hero on the Live servers that I made to just try the game out and it stuck. Be honest, how desirable is it really?

Admittedly Frostbiter probably isn't in the same neighborhood as Arcanaville or Ascendant or Heraclea or Elvis. Sure if someone took that name it's probably just a fluke. Ok, but that doesn't apply to all names.

 

Look, I'm not even arguing for or against purging names. I'm just trying to let everyone know the real situation, and that's there's no need to speculate about it because it's been confirmed, both by a GM and by someone who actually did it.

[Erratic1]

1 hour ago, ZemX said:

 

If you're referring to the post linked by @PeregrineFalcon earlier in this thread, what it actually says is that they grabbed "a large number of desirable names" and then later got mistaken for "famous" live players.  The thing is, "desirable" names are desirable because they are simple and thematic.  Maybe you've heard of Superman?  Batman? Wonder Woman?  If someone grabs "Arcanaville" who isn't actually Arcanaville from the old forums then I'd be suspicious.  But as @Troo's post illustrates, I am not surprised if names as simple as Gy, Guy, Gee, and Tru were taken, entirely independently by people who just thought them up on their own.  

 

 

Back on live and I had both Graviton (my first, post-beta, character) and Vae Victis. 

 

Never thougt to use my forum name as the name of a character. Hmm, possibly would make a good villain name.

[Erratic1]

24 minutes ago, Frostbiter said:

 

How desirable is the name Frostbiter? Even I have to admit it's not the best name I could have come up with. It was my first hero on the Live servers that I made to just try the game out and it stuck. Be honest, how desirable is it really?

 

When the namespace gets suitably colonized, variations of the simpliest form of any name are going to be explored. 'Frostbite' is a pretty obvious name. As example, I would expect 'Frosbites', 'Frostbitten', 'Frostbit' all to have been taken. 

 

This is my character 'Ghosthammer'. You might expect that to be a pretty rare name. 

 

 

I can tell you there is at least one server where the name was taken by someone other than me--which I discovered when I tried to transfer him to another server to play with friends there. But hey, neither that other person nor I attempted to lockdown the name on every server, so if anyone wants to have their own, they can try on three other servers.

[Frostbiter]

31 minutes ago, PeregrineFalcon said:

Admittedly Frostbiter probably isn't in the same neighborhood as Arcanaville or Ascendant or Heraclea or Elvis. Sure if someone took that name it's probably just a fluke. Ok, but that doesn't apply to all names.

 

Look, I'm not even arguing for or against purging names. I'm just trying to let everyone know the real situation, and that's there's no need to speculate about it because it's been confirmed, both by a GM and by someone who actually did it.

 

I don't have a dog in the name purge fight. I got my name on server I wanted and as my global name, anything else is largely irrelevant to me. Although I'd hardly call that name not being available on the three most popular servers a fluke.

 

24 minutes ago, Erratic1 said:

 

When the namespace gets suitably colonized, variations of the simpliest form of any name are going to be explored. 'Frostbite' is a pretty obvious name. As example, I would expect 'Frosbites', 'Frostbitten', 'Frostbit' all to have been taken. 

 

This is my character 'Ghosthammer'. You might expect that to be a pretty rare name. 

 

 

I can tell you there is at least one server where the name was taken by someone other than me--which I discovered when I tried to transfer him to another server to play with friends there. But hey, neither that other person nor I attempted to lockdown the name on every server, so if anyone wants to have their own, they can try on three other servers.

 

If you think I did something wrong with trying to get my name on all the servers, know that that isn't what happened. I tried to roll my Live character on a HC server three different times before I got it on one. The other server I have it on I took so that I'd have a server I could transfer to just in case. Not saying I wouldn't have if it was possible, just that someone beat me to it on 3/5ths of the servers.

 

 

Edited April 20 by Frostbiter

[AlwaysAPrice]

6 minutes ago, PeregrineFalcon said:

Translation: I deliberately logged on to Homecoming, made a ton of characters with all of the famous names that I could remember from the live servers (or possibly looked at a copy of the old forums in case memory wasn't enough), and then flew one of the characters around Atlas Park while saying to myself "ha, ha, I got your name".

 

 

Speaking as someone who has actually had someone go out of their way to camp names identified with me and my friends (back when the VIP server opened on Live), this is a wild extrapolation. While the back half about "they just must not have loved the game as much as i did" is certainly smug nonsense, the situation the first sentence describes is clearly: they got some good names early and at some point since then, "at least one" (definitely happened once that they clearly remember, maybe more) of those names was recognized by another player who mistakenly assumed it was held by the same player they knew held it on live. There's nothing to suggest the names were grabbed because they were used on live, the quote just has a finder's keepers attitude about the ones they have.

 

27 minutes ago, PeregrineFalcon said:

How exactly would someone be mistaken for a famous live player? You'd fly around in Atlas Park with a character with that name above your character's head. There's just no other way that someone would be mistake for a famous live player.

 

You see a name that belonged to a friend on live and go "HEY FRIEND" and they go "do i know you". You can see character names in many parts of the game besides Atlas Park, including multiple text channels that broadcast to everyone playing who has it on a tab. LFG is how I found out my friend who mained Stranglehold on Virtue is not the Stranglehold of Everlasting, for example.

[biostem]

30 minutes ago, macskull said:

The "players who don't want to give up their names are entitled" argument sucks. You want their name released so you can have it. How is that not where the entitlement lies?

It's a weird conundrum;  If you got the name you wanted first try, there'd be no discussion, so that's moot.  OTOH, of course someone is going to argue to have a name released that they want!  All that being said, it seems to me that any and all policies should be in favor of active players over potentially returning ones.  I don't think it's an extreme stance to take that people should play their characters periodically in order to keep their name9s)...

[macskull]

8 minutes ago, biostem said:

It's a weird conundrum;  If you got the name you wanted first try, there'd be no discussion, so that's moot.  OTOH, of course someone is going to argue to have a name released that they want!  All that being said, it seems to me that any and all policies should be in favor of active players over potentially returning ones.  I don't think it's an extreme stance to take that people should play their characters periodically in order to keep their name9s)...

This argument assumes that if a player isn't actively playing the game, they are no longer interested in the game or their characters. Sure, there are going to be people who play for a while and leave and never come back, but there are also going to be players who are away from the game for extended periods of time for other reasons, sometimes through no fault of their own. Who are we to decide whether the reason for their absence is enough that we should release their character names?

[biostem]

2 minutes ago, macskull said:

Who are we to decide whether the reason for their absence is enough that we should release their character names?

Well, we're active players, for one thing.  That by itself should trump anything that inactive players have to contribute.  But. as I'm sure others have pointed out, asking someone to check in once to even twice a year is not too much to ask, (maybe even 3+ times).

[Erratic1]

14 minutes ago, Frostbiter said:

If you think I did something wrong with trying to get my name on all the servers, know that that isn't what happened.

 

 I do not think you did something wrong. You explained the tie to your forum name, which casts things in a different light, but even if it hadn't...there is nothing wrong with you fulfilling a desire to uniquely have the name. I am just noting the name space for obvious names for various character concepts is limited, so people are going to hit on the central set of names and the easy variations quite quickly. So 'Frostbiter' is not really something so unusual as for it not to be a name someone would likely seek to get at some point. I attempted to illustrate how people latch onto increasingly non-obvious names by referencing my character Ghosthammer.

 

What with the history of Black superheroes (and now villains--Black Manta was not originally Black, but someone decided to lean heavily into the trope), I really wish I had been able to get the name 'Black Ice'. 'Black <anything simple>' though is probably completely camped at this point.