Homecoming Server Update (October 1st): Closed Beta, Name Release, and CoC Updates

[The Chairman]

15 minutes ago, Owl Girl said:

what is it? 🙂

 

[Jawbreaker]

Any chance the name release can affect @global names as well? Someone has mine from live nad has never responded to my messages so I think they may have moved on from the game as well

[kelika2]

On 10/2/2024 at 2:08 PM, GM_GooglyMoogly said:

TRAINED LEVEL.

I have not been this excited since the patch where we could select the second power in our secondaries and when required levels for powers got squished down to 22/26 primary t8/9 and 24/28/30 for t7/8/9 secondary

 

thethehtehthe trained level thing expands on the chances of even more names being released

[Indystruck]

I'm curious to see the breakdown of the # of estimated freed names vs. # of the actual freed names after it hits

[Herotu]

6 hours ago, Indystruck said:

I'm curious to see the breakdown of the # of estimated freed names vs. # of the actual freed names after it hits

I bet the estimate is very accurate, and no, I'm not being cynical.

[PoptartsNinja]

Forgive me if this has been answered:

Does the name release count the level of your currently active build? So if you accidentally swap from a level 50 to a level 1 Build 2, it'll still treat you like a 50 right?

[lemming]

43 minutes ago, PoptartsNinja said:

Forgive me if this has been answered:

Does the name release count the level of your currently active build? So if you accidentally swap from a level 50 to a level 1 Build 2, it'll still treat you like a 50 right?

Not entirely sure, but looks like if it looks like level 1 on the selection screen, that's what it will use. 

 

On 10/2/2024 at 11:08 AM, GM_GooglyMoogly said:

Edit: After consultation, I have been advised that it is the number that appears on the character selection screen, which is TRAINED LEVEL.

[Kyastral]

16 hours ago, Indystruck said:

I'm curious to see the breakdown of the # of estimated freed names vs. # of the actual freed names after it hits

You won't like those numbers if they are made public. Name releases, in my opinion and experiences, are disappointing for most players; very few get the names they want and then the soap opera drama water works begin and continue for few weeks, if not a few months.

 

My question is this: what will happen to those accounts that will have ALL of the character names unlocked and the owner of those accounts doesn't do anything about it after the name release is finished? 

Edited October 6 by Kyastral

[Glacier Peak]

1 hour ago, Kyastral said:

what will happen to those accounts that will have ALL of the character names unlocked and the owner of those accounts doesn't do anything about it after the name release is finished? 

The names become available for other players to use. If a player uses a released name, the prior namesake gets a generic name and number. 

[PoptartsNinja]

11 hours ago, PoptartsNinja said:

Forgive me if this has been answered:

Does the name release count the level of your currently active build? So if you accidentally swap from a level 50 to a level 1 Build 2, it'll still treat you like a 50 right?

Just tested this:

 

Looks like people are going to need to be very careful about build switching.

[RBT]

Quote

You won't like those numbers if they are made public. Name releases, in my opinion and experiences, are disappointing for most players; very few get the names they want and then the soap opera drama water works begin and continue for few weeks, if not a few months.

 

Oh no! I was not aware that there had been previous name releases? "Soap opera water works"?! When was this?

[lemming]

47 minutes ago, RBT said:

Oh no! I was not aware that there had been previous name releases? "Soap opera water works"?! When was this?

Not on Homecoming, happened on live.

[Kyastral]

2 hours ago, Glacier Peak said:

The names become available for other players to use. If a player uses a released name, the prior namesake gets a generic name and number. 

True, but what about those unused accounts themselves? Will they sit in limbo among the active servers or will they be moved elsewhere until the player "reactivates" their account by logging in again.

[Indystruck]

3 hours ago, Kyastral said:

You won't like those numbers if they are made public.

 

Yeah I would, that's why I asked for the numbers and not a list of the names or something. I got the handful of names I want already.

[RBT]

23 minutes ago, lemming said:

Not on Homecoming, happened on live.

Ah! Well that was over a decade ago and this is completely different system, right? I was very young on Live but didn't they just free up accounts that had been inactive for a certain time? I feel VERY optimistic about this name release 🙂

[lemming]

54 minutes ago, Kyastral said:

True, but what about those unused accounts themselves? Will they sit in limbo among the active servers or will they be moved elsewhere until the player "reactivates" their account by logging in again.

That is not addressed by this policy and as explained by the devs, this only pertains to characters, not accounts.   So, limbo as you describe it.

[lemming]

54 minutes ago, Indystruck said:

Yeah I would, that's why I asked for the numbers and not a list of the names or something. I got the handful of names I want already.

Not sure if it's that trackable.  I suppose they could run a query that shows how many generic'd names on characters exist on Dec 1 to see how names got used by new characters.

 

What I want to try is grabbing a generic'd name that is on an idle character.

[ravengale]

-Using TFs and AE mode to bypass the AFK logout timer may result in being disconnected by a GM-

 

I'd love to see Pocket D be a no AFK zone.  So many people park there to roleplay or advertise for their clubs (at least on Everlasting), and they have to use AE mode to avoid going AFK and autologging.  Is there any way to make just that zone a place where autolog does not apply?

[Ukase]

I have a fair number of names that I like on level 50 characters. If, after name release, you try for a name and can't get it - I recommend you try /getglobalname Name

And let Name be the name you wanted to get and couldn't. If by chance it's one of mine, odds are I would let you have it if I haven't played the character in a while. I'm only really attached to about 20-25 of the hundreds of names I have on level 50 characters. Most wouldn't be of interest, as they're some sort of Ukase XXXX or Gordian XXXX or Apache XXXX. 
But I do have some names I rather like that have no naming convention applied. Like Humdinger, Doozy, and Flabbergasted. I'm keeping those. 

But, if asked nicely, I may be willing to release some names, as they're on 50's I haven't gotten around to doing a respec, and then deleting. 

[BlastLord]

I do 100% agree with the code of conduct I do not like people doing stuff like multiboxing on raids and such it ruins the raids and causes problems. I am glad the GMs are stopping people doing that.

[Greycat]

6 hours ago, BlastLord said:

I do 100% agree with the code of conduct I do not like people doing stuff like multiboxing on raids and such it ruins the raids and causes problems. I am glad the GMs are stopping people doing that.

 

People *already* aren't supposed to be multiboxing on mothership or hami raids. And have gotten kicked for doing so.

[Greycat]

14 hours ago, RBT said:

Ah! Well that was over a decade ago and this is completely different system, right? I was very young on Live but didn't they just free up accounts that had been inactive for a certain time? I feel VERY optimistic about this name release 🙂

 

The account / name system isn't different.

 

Live had two name releases. The first one was very much like this. The second one pretty much just pertained to low level characters, as that's where most of the names freed were. It really didn't do a lot.

 

https://homecoming.wiki/wiki/Character_Name_Policy

 

(this'll probably need to be edited to show "legacy" versus "HC" now. )

[Number Six]

4 hours ago, Greycat said:

The account / name system isn't different.

 

It is a completely different system.

 

The one on live wasn't a name release at all, it was a one-shot script they presumably* ran during downtime that looked for characters on inactive non-paying accounts (this was shortly after the F2P transition) and physically removed them from the database to cheaper storage. These "offline" characters could still be seen in the character list and attempting to log one in required the character to go through a process of being re-imported first, which is very similar to a server transfer. Freeing up the names while they were offlined was just a side effect.

 

Our system doesn't work like that at all and is a fully automatic realtime system that renames inactive characters "just-in-time" when a new character is being created with the same name.

 

---

 

* I say presumably because we don't actually have that script. The architecture for handling offlined players still exists in the code, but there's nothing that actually triggers moving characters to offline storage, so it must have been somehow handled outside the game server.

[Number Six]

4 hours ago, Greycat said:

https://homecoming.wiki/wiki/Character_Name_Policy

 

That wiki page is incorrect. There was no such thing as "unreserved" status in the code until we added something similar (though it's calculated in realtime rather than being a flag in the database or something) as part of the Homecoming name release system. From the description it sounds like the offlined characters that were removed from the database were misinterpreted as some kind of unreserved flag, but that's not what was actually happening.

 

AFAICT offlining was a somewhat newer feature though so I don't know how the 2005 sweep could have worked. Perhaps they had an earlier version of it that was replaced for Going Rogue.

[Ridiculous Girl]

 

 

BTW... we are getting flagged as inactive at 28 days (4 weeks) rather than the 30 days stated.

 

On 10/1/2024 at 3:58 PM, Widower said:

Level 1-5 characters will be flagged as inactive if they have not been played in the last 30 days