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

[SupermanCO]

On 10/1/2024 at 5:27 PM, Seed22 said:

Quote

 

I wouldn’t recommend doing this, as I think a lot of people who play this game religiously fail to understand:

 

Outside of this game? RL happens. Their computer might break down, a family member may pass and they have to grieve for some time, marriages and then a child. That can lead to spending 1+ years away from the game. They’re not camping a name you want(Psst! Use a thesaurus, and make use of synonyms. Thats been my secret to names when stumped), they’re living a life and unfortunately can’t get to the game.

 

They shouldn’t be punished because they have correct priorities/life circumstances come up.

 

 

They have a saying on my planet...



Why you would argue for people to retain names they may have had for years, and are clearly not returning back to play (for whatever the circumstance), is beyond me.

Personally, I just want 2 names back.  Not a lot.  But it irked me when I 1st came to Homecoming that they were not available.  I look forward to this massive name release policy.

Respectfully and with thanks to the GMs for doing this,
@Transcendent Man (Excelsior)
246 alts...for now.

 

Edited October 27 by SupermanCO
quote

[brass_eagle]

On 10/14/2024 at 1:49 PM, Widower said:

Just a quick update per public request: the exact time we will be activating the system is 9:30 PM Eastern (02:30 UTC). Please plan (or not) accordingly.

 

Is there any chance that the donation or maintenance "admin account channel" can announce this a couple times this week IN-GAME for the non-forum trolls like myself? I appreciate the work that has gone into this, but for this one deadline that seems appropriate. 

 

Again a good thing you are doing, but I can only see benefits for creating conversation about the name release throughout the week--if manpower allows. 

 

No need to respond to the post, but I hope you can talk about it internally. Almost all of my friends do not read the forums, or the text on the launcher.

Edited October 28 by brass_eagle

[Boudicia.Dark]

People waiting for other people to potentially lose a character name are coming across as rather ghoulish.

[Ukase]

On 10/28/2024 at 4:09 AM, brass_eagle said:

Almost all of my friends do not read the forums,

Look, I kind of get it. Folks are busy, and when they're not, they'd rather play than read about playing. But candidly, the information in the forums can certainly help make the best use of limited time. I suggest you encourage your friends to visit the forums and skim through things like the patch notes, and the various guides on making influence if they're not flush with inf. 
Playing the game and not reading the forums is kind of like getting in your car and taking a road trip with no destination. You might enjoy yourself, but you might also miss the turn into the forest because you couldn't see it with all the trees in your way. 

Like now, pending maintenance is a great time to visit the forums and read stuff. 

[Derek Icelord]

1 hour ago, Ukase said:

Look, I kind of get it. Folks are busy, and when they're not, they'd rather play than read about playing. But candidly, the information in the forums can certainly help make the best use of limited time. I suggest you encourage your friends to visit the forums and skim through things like the patch notes, and the various guides on making influence if they're not flush with inf. 
Playing the game and not reading the forums is kind of like getting in your car and taking a road trip with no destination. You might enjoy yourself, but you might also miss the turn into the forest because you couldn't see it with all the trees in your way. 

Like now, pending maintenance is a great time to visit the forums and read stuff. 

 

Or, at the bare minimum, read the bloody launcher text. You have to have it up to launch the game already. Take the 30 seconds to check if the most recent announcement is new.

[brass_eagle]

3 hours ago, Ukase said:

But candidly, the information in the forums can certainly help make the best use of limited time. I suggest you encourage your friends to visit the forums

2 hours ago, Derek Icelord said:

 

Or, at the bare minimum, read the bloody launcher text. You have to have it up to launch the game already. Take the 30 seconds to check if the most recent announcement is new.

 

I don't get some of the frustrated pushback here. When I made my request, this information was not even on the launcher. You can see it was added this morning, October 29th, 2024. My request was because this information was nowhere else but the forums despite having other official channels of communication where you'd expect update announcements. The reason I requested an announcement in-game was just because the name release was only a few days away. I should have highlighted that it was not on the launcher. I chose my sub-topic poorly, miscommunicating myself (the irony).

 

It also appears the GMOTD was pushed on next login starting from this morning. That now also has the name release on it.

 

That's all I asked for in good faith... using good practices in communication to the community. Historically updates to the game do not happen during holiday events. The name release is not a major content update, so people tend to only be concerned with Halloween event at the moment, which IIRC ends after the name release.

 

EDIT:

 

I would also like to say since the launcher has been updated and GMOTD has been pushed, I am seeing people ask questions about it in help and general already. Thank you devs for pushing that forward.

Edited October 29 by brass_eagle
Anecdotal evidence

[lemming]

11 minutes ago, brass_eagle said:

When I made my request, this information was not even on the launcher.

It was under the Oct 1 patch.

 

I run into this all the time with one of my responsibilities.

 

"I can't find <insert info>"

"It was written on slack in the relevant channels, and there's a board in the kitchen with that information"

"Can we get the info on <some other location>"

Adds info to more locations.  People still don't see it.   One location doesn't get updated or it's old data by this point, and then someone complains that the other locations must be wrong.

You see where this is going?

 

It's in Announcements which gets linked in the launcher and discord.   If people want to be informed, then all they have to do is click on link.  It doesn't take much effort.

[brass_eagle]

3 minutes ago, lemming said:

It was under the Oct 1 patch.

 

I, myself totally missed it. Didn't scroll down. Reminders are always a good thing though for important items. I find that is good management. Others may disagree with me.

Edited October 29 by brass_eagle

[lemming]

7 minutes ago, brass_eagle said:

I, myself totally missed it. Didn't scroll down. Reminders are always a good thing though for important items. I find that is good management. Others may disagree with me.

Reminders only work if people read them.

 

They could have a dancing Jack holding a sign with the announcement in every zone, and people still wouldn't notice.

[brass_eagle]

8 hours ago, lemming said:

Reminders only work if people read them.

 

They could have a dancing Jack holding a sign with the announcement in every zone, and people still wouldn't notice.

 

While I don't totally disagree with you, I would like to point out that reminders in a feed(RSS)-like announcement system bring items to the front / top of the page. It is 101 website communication about visibility, getting your article seen.. Google algorithms about updates... Just as more people on the forums will see the last responded to post in a sub-forum. We've actually had a close to a record amount of announcements on the launcher in a short amount of time in Homecoming's lifetime this month. And some of those announcements aren't small in space due to images.

 

The hyperbole here is a good and funny one, but ultimately doesn't add anything to the discussion but apathy and dismissiveness. We can just agree to disagree. I really wouldn't discount the merits of visibility in the CoH forum / announcement structure for something that affects every player. 

 

I simply saw (what I thought) was a gap, and tried to be helpful. Even logging on tonight, I see people in server-wide channels asking about this change. Maybe that was the reminder, maybe not. None of us have concrete evidence of that. Of course, there are plenty (active) who will not see this announcemen, that's just a given.

[LockeValken]

Not sure why there would be any pushback on any additional announcement methods, I definitely endorse that. 

 

To be honest I already thought it was active though.

[Tesseract0123]

Hello, does the flagging of a character (name) as inactive immediately allow it to be 'taken' by another player, or will there be a "latency" period so the player can see the flag and log in with that character?  IMO a week would not be an uncalled-for delay as some people don't log in every day.  :)

[Tesseract0123]

Are there any plans to restrict someone from taking the same character name on *all* the shards?  That way, someone can't "sit on" a good name on all servers despite only being able to play one at a time.

[brass_eagle]

7 minutes ago, Tesseract0123 said:

Are there any plans to restrict someone from taking the same character name on *all* the shards?  That way, someone can't "sit on" a good name on all servers despite only being able to play one at a time.

 

I don't believe there are. Each shard has their own name database as far as I am aware. 

[Clave Dark 5]

On 10/24/2024 at 4:25 PM, QueenJoy said:

I am certain the GMs have received complaints about a specifically named trio of MMs who sit just idle enough, outside of an active league, to passively gain rewards.

I've filed tickets, and left one-star players notes on them, repeatedly.  Last year as well.  Still seeing them around, yep. 

 

Anecdotally, one team that formed yesterday morning remarked on how nice it was to have been lucky enough to fill the server before the MMs showed up, ha ha

[brass_eagle]

2 hours ago, LockeValken said:

Not sure why there would be any pushback on any additional announcement methods, I definitely endorse that. 

 

To be honest I already thought it was active though.

 

Thanks for the support, Locke. I really appreciate it and originally made a post here (hastily) because I felt the update wasn't communicated enough. Pushback happens on any forums. If you look at @lemming and anyone that 'emojiied' their post, you will find people that have been active in many facets on this forum at least 8 times a day (except for one). My post was not for them, and asking for those that may not read the forum more than once every two weeks. The name release is a big change that affects everyone. 

 

While they may like to make jokes about reminders and like those posts, the Homecoming team did what I was being made fun of for by @Ukase and @lemming. I would never want to be associated by proxy for being jaded at just saying "Hey! This is happening! We are a volunteer team and doing due diligence!" -- I am very discouraged at the pushback I received, and never also got a good reason for why my request was wrong. All I got was bad faith sass, and veteran forum-dweller non-likes. Even being argued against, when the current volunteer homecoming team did almost what I requested.  Not like I was the messiah. Hell no. -- If I was in bad faith, I could say that Lemmings was calling the volunteer devs *Jack waving a sign*,  because that comment was made after the reminders went live.

 

14 hours ago, lemming said:

They could have a dancing Jack holding a sign with the announcement in every zone, and people still wouldn't notice.

 

**Example of how a reminder is offensive as explained

 

I just want to point out, it is such a simple thing. Why do prominent, long-standing members of the community have to shut it down? Pride? Clearly in the wrong too because IT HAPPENED.  You are better than that.

Edited October 30 by brass_eagle

[lemming]

I'm sorry you feel attacked.   I was having an info fatigue issue outside of CoX, and let that color my responses.

 

I'm good with how HC announced it.

Info over the last year or so.

Discord & Forum announcements for a month (and in launcher)

And a game popup this week.

 

I just happen to know that there will be many people who will still not see it.

[brass_eagle]

9 hours ago, lemming said:

I'm sorry you feel attacked.   I was having an info fatigue issue outside of CoX, and let that color my responses.

 

I'm good with how HC announced it.

Info over the last year or so.

Discord & Forum announcements for a month (and in launcher)

And a game popup this week.

 

I just happen to know that there will be many people who will still not see it.

 

No worries, friend. I myself get overzealous and overpassionate when I need to distract myself... and am also in my busiest time of year.  

 

EDIT: -- Edited to add that while I still believe in the good communication, I went a bit overboard here. 

Edited October 31 by brass_eagle
duh

[strix_]

Appreciate getting the name release reminder on the launcher as of yesterday! I haven't been able to log in as much lately (and I don't really care about losing any specific character names I might've set up and not leveled to 50) but it was a good reminder to log into any characters whose names I'm precious about

[UltraAlt]

11 hours ago, Tesseract0123 said:

Hello, does the flagging of a character (name) as inactive immediately allow it to be 'taken' by another player, or will there be a "latency" period so the player can see the flag and log in with that character?  IMO a week would not be an uncalled-for delay as some people don't log in every day.  🙂

 

The character list displays a yellow "pre-warning" icon to give advance notice before the inactivity period expires. Level 1-5 characters start warning 7 days prior, while level 6-49 characters start warning 30 days prior.

 

- 

 

[Ukase]

9 hours ago, brass_eagle said:

While they may like to make jokes about reminders and like those posts, the Homecoming team did what I was being made fun of for by @Ukase 

So, I'm not clear at all on how my post could be construed as making any kind of joke about you, or anyone else. I was just trying to suggest you make a suggestion to your friends to visit the forums. There was nothing sinister or mocking about it, at least, that was never my intent. I did stretch an analogy suggesting folks who don't visit the forums are missing out on things - like information. But you shouldn't take that as any kind of disrespect towards you, or anyone else. It's just a fact. They miss out on information. Not just from the HC team, but from players who have been on beta and know things about game mechanics that most of us can't be bothered to learn. I pick up new tips and tricks for slotting various builds that I would NEVER get in game. 

[brass_eagle]

9 hours ago, Ukase said:

So, I'm not clear at all on how my post could be construed as making any kind of joke about you, or anyone else. I was just trying to suggest you make a suggestion to your friends to visit the forums. There was nothing sinister or mocking about it, at least, that was never my intent. I did stretch an analogy suggesting folks who don't visit the forums are missing out on things - like information. But you shouldn't take that as any kind of disrespect towards you, or anyone else. It's just a fact. They miss out on information. Not just from the HC team, but from players who have been on beta and know things about game mechanics that most of us can't be bothered to learn. I pick up new tips and tricks for slotting various builds that I would NEVER get in game. 

 

Again my apologies, I made it quite serious didn't I? All this fuss over a reminder. It should be simple, but this is the internet. No, Ukase your character is not in question. I apologize. 

[Ukase]

9 hours ago, brass_eagle said:

 

Again my apologies, I made it quite serious didn't I? All this fuss over a reminder. It should be simple, but this is the internet. No, Ukase your character is not in question. I apologize. 

Character? I had about 486 of them, but I've whittled it down to about 435 over the past months...
No worries here.

[Nostromo21]

For the record, not that anyone cares, I think this a terrible decision that will not solve whatever it is trying to 'fix'.

It just means that returning players will get forced to rename toons, who they may have spent hours with working up a theme that matches the costume and powerset and NAME, only to have that 'stolen' from them by some speculator who they can now see running around Atlas with it with their toon, because for some reason CoH thinks that, unlike any other thing you 'own', a goods or service that in unused for some arbitrary period of time should be a free-for-all and anyone can just take it. Ahem.

 

My only other issue is that all of a sudden, I see most of my 70+ toons under level 50 at 200+ days, when I an 100% certain I have logged into many, if not most of them within at least the last 100 days. What the hells is up with that??? Did you just add +100 days to everyone's expiry time to keep the whiners happy...? This will create a lot more unhappy campers than happy entitled ones, mark my words. And you know where that path leads...all the best with the decision!

[mechahamham]

6 hours ago, Nostromo21 said:

My only other issue is that all of a sudden, I see most of my 70+ toons under level 50 at 200+ days, when I an 100% certain I have logged into many, if not most of them within at least the last 100 days. What the hells is up with that??? Did you just add +100 days to everyone's expiry time to keep the whiners happy...?

 

This is easily verifiable. Lots of us log chat and take screenshots. Be sure to post an excerpt of a chat log with a timestamp that shows less than 100 days on a character when you've also verified that they're showing 200+ days. You may be able to find someone you group with regularly who logs this if you haven't.

 

Seriously, don't accuse people without proof. It says a lot more about you than it does about them.