HC needs to develop a policy on memorials.

[Shin Magmus]

3 hours ago, GM_GooglyMoogly said:

Can we please discuss this sensitive topic with respect and without attacking each other?

     Why ask questions you already know the answer to?  Just skip right to locking the thread, it's clear what will happen.

[Greycat]

5 hours ago, Excraft said:

 

How so?  I think you're ascribing negativity where there isn't any.

 

 

Sai has a personal beef with me. *shrug* That's where he's coming from and why he's "ascribing negativity." I don't bother interacting with them. They're not worth it, to me.

 

No, there was no negativity or line drawing. As I've said a few times now, I don't know the person. The post was made specifically because requests for memorials - and not always because people have passed (such as Veracor, mentioned in the original post.) And it was made in its OWN post, as mentioned in the first one, specifically NOT to disrupt the "Can we memorialize this person" request and specifically NOT to be able to be taken as "No, this person doesn't deserve it" by any reasonable individual.

 

 

4 hours ago, Kistulot said:

I kinda didn't want to say it about the first post, but uh... the emphasis on not even knowing they existed feels... so... it hurts. I don't hold it against anyone, but it hurts.

 

 

Which is why I also mentioned Todogut in the MSR specifically as another example. I don't know them either. Or the person standing in Icon. Me not knowing someone existed? Is me not knowing someone existed. Maybe they were on at different times or RP'd in a different area or with a different crowd. There's zero reason to hold it against anyone or be hurt by it. I didn't show up at the vigil that was held either for the same reason. I don't know them. I wouldn't show up at a random funeral or wedding either.

 

Again, and I shouldn't have to keep explaining this but apparently I do, this is in its *own* thread to avoid causing problems there, to let people who miss them and want to reply miss them with the others who do. It doesn't have anything to do with them, their "worthiness" or anything else specific to them. It was made because *people keep asking for this for some people* and I think the discussion has to be had by the devs and between them and the community - and because I still think, just in general, a generic memorial for everyone we've lost, widely remembered or not, would be a good idea.

 

5 hours ago, Kistulot said:

If someone told me that they wanted a memorial for a character of a fallen player and I didn't know them, the worst thing I would say is "I'm sorry I never had a chance to know them. Let's do this."

 

I would... definitely encourage some empathy.

 

You say you're hurt by me saying I don't know them - can you see how "well, THIS person got that, why isn't my friend good enough?" might hurt others?

 

And I'm going to reiterate what I just said. This is why *this* thread was created and not posted in the other. To avoid disrupting it. That is, itself, empathy, and leaving those who want to remember and mourn to themselves there.

[GM_GooglyMoogly]

2 hours ago, Shin Magmus said:

     Why ask questions you already know the answer to?  Just skip right to locking the thread, it's clear what will happen.

 

 

No, I think the issue is worth discussing.  Instead of locking the thread, I'll just hand out time-outs to those that can't play nice.  I know that several of you have a history and don't like each other.  Please refrain from having to respond to each other if you are just going to argue and derail.

 

[Americas Angel]

19 hours ago, Greycat said:

I initially started posting this in the thread about yet another member of the community who passed. I broke this out because - well, one, I don't want to bring it in to a thread with people mourning the loss of a friend[...]

Exactly. Due to the timing of this thread's creation, your suggestion is insensitive, by your own admission.

 

Because of this, I would suggest you hide/delete this thread, and repost it in a month or so, once the folks you are starting arguments with have had time to grieve the death of their friend.

 

This is probably a debate worth having. Just not right now.

[BasiliskXVIII]

1 hour ago, Americas Angel said:

Exactly. Due to the timing of this thread's creation, your suggestion is insensitive, by your own admission.

 

Because of this, I would suggest you hide/delete this thread, and repost it in a month or so, once the folks you are starting arguments with have had time to grieve the death of their friend.

 

This is probably a debate worth having. Just not right now.

And just hope that anyone to pass away between now and then aren't particularly well liked, I guess.

[ScarySai]

17 minutes ago, BasiliskXVIII said:

And just hope that anyone to pass away between now and then aren't particularly well liked, I guess.

Or just don't worry about it, because this entire thread is really making a big deal out of a very, very small ask.

 

Like I'm sorry, I don't forsee even the most exaggerated hypothetical scenario of us having "too many memorial NPCs" impeding even one person, ever. So it's very hard for me to take this seriously, on top of the just horrific timing in general.

 

They haven't even DONE anything yet, people just asked if it could be done, but no, certain people have to make everything about them.

Edited December 16 by ScarySai

[Greycat]

Something I think the people who are being offended here are missing, I think.  A few things, in fact.

 

One, if the HC team has this discussion with us, as I suggested in the original post... you'll be part of that discussion. The reasons and process will be clear and open to EVERYONE.

 

And two, it means instead of "put a thread on the forum and hope," you'd have something laid out to do. (Barring the devs just saying "We're not comfortable doing this for anyone else.") You know, something like "Send a message to XYZ with the character's name, their global if you  have it, where would be appropriate," etc... you know, making the process of memorializing your friend standardized and easier. (And if they didn't get that done, having a place people can just go to as well to remember folks.)

 

But, no, I'm the bad guy for suggesting this. *sigh* How dare I suggest something that might make it easier for others who lose someone to have them remembered. 

[ZacKing]

Some folks may want to take a breath here and read the thread @ShardWarriorlinked above on the request to add @Heracleainto the game in Cimerora.  Heraclea was a well known and respected player too who did a lot for Tanker Tuesdays.  He had an impact on the community back on live and here in HC.  You can see from the thread there are a lot of people who agreed with his inclusion too.  By the way - Shard's post is a little over a week after Heraclea passed on, and nobody lost their minds over timing.  Just my 2 inf on that.

 

Anyway, with that said, there's a GM response in the Heraclea thread that's worth repeating here.

 

Here's the relevant part of GM Impervium's post -

 

On 1/9/2022 at 11:26 AM, GM Impervium said:

That said, this sort of thing clearly has precedent, but it's ultimately up to the Devs and HC leads.

 

That's how it should remain in my opinion - completely and totally at the discretion of the HC team, with no rules or set guidelines on who gets added when or where.  Requesting HC develop a policy for this is putting them in a very bad position, and that's very unfair to them.  No matter what they do or what policy they create, they're going to offend and upset people.   Who gets to decide where the NPC goes?  What if someone else wanted that spot?  Stuff like that is why whatever rules HC comes up with will never be good enough for everyone.  They can't please everyone here and they shouldn't be trying to in my opinion.  It's a no win situation for HC and I don't think we should be asking HC to do it.  If they're going to include one person, then they'll need to include everyone as that's the only equal and fair way to do it since everyone who has passed on has family and friends and is worth remembering.  Sadly, there's quite a few of us who can name at least one person we knew from the game who has passed away that had some impact on us.  That makes everyone worthy in my book.

 

I'll say again, I think building a memorial in the base editor is the best option.  Friends and loved ones can collaborate and build a memorial they feel best represents the person(s) they want to remember.  I like the idea of adding the holo emitter to the base editor specifically for this purpose.  Hell, you could even make entire AE arcs with the persons character as contact or in the story to tell others all about them and let them team up with that person's character.  They'll be immortalized forever in there.

Edited December 16 by ZacKing

[Widower]

19 hours ago, Greycat said:

Homecoming's devs/cms/whatever terms you want are going to have to sit down, both with just each other to determine what they're comfortable with, and with the community as a whole, and come up with a solid policy on memorials.

Well, okay, but don't say I didn't warn you.

 

It has been the consensus of the team for a number of years now that additional memorial NPCs, ala Coyote or Ascendant, will not be added. There are a variety of reasons for this; the favoritism angle, the whole complex of questions around verification and privacy and consent, and the very high odds that we will get it wrong in a way that makes everyone feel some combination of bad, sad and mad. The only potential exception would be if someone who worked on the game were to pass away, as we did for GM Cyclone.

 

That said, there are no specific plans at the moment for a memorial wall/plaque somewhere. However, it is something that I personally have idly considered for a while, as have some others. If there is public interest in it as well, perhaps it could be a reality in the future.

[Greycat]

Thank you.

 

While not an answer everyone will be happy with I'm sure, it's good and transparent and lets everyone know where we stand as a community.

 

And yes. Would 100% support a generic memorial for everyone who's passed, no matter how well (or not) they were known, if that ever comes up.

[Kistulot]

50 minutes ago, Widower said:

Well, okay, but don't say I didn't warn you.

 

It has been the consensus of the team for a number of years now that additional memorial NPCs, ala Coyote or Ascendant, will not be added. There are a variety of reasons for this; the favoritism angle, the whole complex of questions around verification and privacy and consent, and the very high odds that we will get it wrong in a way that makes everyone feel some combination of bad, sad and mad. The only potential exception would be if someone who worked on the game were to pass away, as we did for GM Cyclone.

 

That said, there are no specific plans at the moment for a memorial wall/plaque somewhere. However, it is something that I personally have idly considered for a while, as have some others. If there is public interest in it as well, perhaps it could be a reality in the future.

 

As a person who didn't ask, but now has this answer to face?

I'm very disappointed.

 

Homecoming is a server based on its community. You're not selling this game to people for it being a cutting edge new MMO. The people who get curious would never stick around without things like MIDS to allow people to make builds in a game so opaque that without a community it's nearly impossible to figure anything out. The help chat channel is basically a requirement because even with the wiki, the in game tutorials can do nothing to make up for how the game was hard to understand from the start and nothing ever improved upon it.

 

Favoritism is pretty easily solved by just adding people in as they're requested, or enabling some means for a person to request it in case of their untimely death.

 

The complex questions of verification and privacy? People have faked their deaths before, yes. I don't see how hard it is to add an NPC that doesn't even talk and remove it if it turns out that it was a prank. I realize it's not completely nontrivial, but I also know that it's nowhere near say, balancing powersets.

 

Consent is a pretty simple answer here: the ToS says anything created in the game becomes part of the game. It's not a violation of anything to thereofre use part of the game.

 

Get it wrong?

 

We're a community, aren't we? We can talk about it. We can discuss.

 

Something that has bothered me about Homecoming for awhile in general feels like it needs to be expressed right here: The only reason that Homecoming has a population is because it was the biggest pirate server. The legitimacy granted is good for the devs, but I don't think any of us who were here in 2019, and built the communities that have made it worth being here, ever gave a damn. The clubs that fill with people, the raids that all gather up? That's the community. The mothership raids, the hamidon, the synapse babbage farms on torch... it's the community.

 

Yet for some reason there's been inherently a relationship between the community and the Devs/GMs as though this were still live.

 

I have so much respect for what's been accomplished, but I really feel like there needs to be some acknowledgement here: homecoming is not even making a profit. It's here because people love the community, and the game... but the majority of the work that keeps people here?

 

Was in place before 2012.

 

If it wasn't, then it was done before 2019, in which case it was truly a pirate server with no public presence whatsoever, and yet there's this lack of a feeling of traditional community conversation. "Soon" wasn't all that cute back by the end of the game in 2012, but here I see 0 reason why the kind of things discussed on the beta server aren't shared with everyone. Yes there are people who think Kin melee is overpowered and fire blast is weak. There are people who probably still think the tram lines being merged, and the PORTAL system made the game "too easy". But it would be a discussion between community devs and gms and the people who make anyone log into this game.

 

I feel like there's a strong argument to be made that, for example, Veracor has done a not insignificant service to the game compared to. Well. A lot of people... Yet we all know the reason that he dropped off of doing things: because even the people making it so people gave a damn about content weren't being treated like a part of the process. Because things that people care about were being ignored.

 

This isn't just about this singular issue. Honestly, it was a shot in the dark... but this response has killed the last of my ability to be quiet about these frustrations. I realize it's likely to get all sorts of nasty or unpleasant responses, but I don't feel like anything I'm saying is wrong and I'm doing it without resorting to harsh language or insults, so take that as you will.

 

Is this the kind of response that may make Devs/GMs not want to help the game? Maybe. That, I apologize for...but I would entreat anyone who would go "this? This is why I don't want to bother anymore" to consider the perspective I'm laying out. Two years ago there would be no more validity to this server than if I'd ran the distributed source code. It feels to me like the true legitimacy shouldn't come from NCSoft, but from a respect and communication with the players, with an open dialogue, with an understanding of where we are, where we're going, and not a feeling of a brick wall that we can hope might acknowledge anything.

 

AE has more new content in it than the rest of the game ever will, but it's barely been touched comparatively. Each addition to the base system enables the community to create more things for the wider player base, yet those representing those segments of the community have been excised from special positions not given more.

 

TL;DR: The veneer of professionalism that's desired here has only ever hurt HC, and I don't feel like any of this is being done for any reason that benefits the game or takes it in a direction which respects and allows for it to have a long term viability.

[Kistulot]

Gonna add that it's great that this was posted HERE and not in the thread that was about the memorial request, also that there was no quick place to view this decision yet apparently it's been made already.

 

Esprit d'escalier.

[ScarySai]

It's a disappointing answer but ultimately I'm fine with the answer being "no". Eventually tools can be added that will indirectly allow us to do it ourselves in bases and whatnot.

 

Though I do think replying to that in a bad faithed troll thread instead of the one requesting the addition is strange.

 

 

Edited December 16 by ScarySai

[Laucianna]

I will chime in with the flat no is upsetting to hear, @Kistulot makes some good points on how your concerns could be handled and honestly there is never a right answer as you will always upset some people, but I feel no memorial at all is more upsetting as a whole then having them.

I don't see the harm in NPCs with names and main costumes being added to favourite zones of those players after they passed if requested by people close to them 💛

Edit: It would also help zones feel more alive with the community that helped keep this game as amazing as it currently is

Edited December 16 by Laucianna

[Rudra]

3 minutes ago, Laucianna said:

I will chime in with the flat no is upsetting to hear, @Kistulot makes some good points on how your concerns could be handled and honestly there is never a right answer as you will always upset some people, but I feel no memorial at all is more upsetting as a whole then having them.

I don't see the harm in NPCs with names and main costumes being added to favourite zones of those players after they passed if requested by people close to them 💛

Edit: It would also help zones feel more alive with the community that helped keep this game as amazing as it currently is

That's what the "Fallen but not Forgotten" forum is for. Is to be a memorial to our fallen players and let others be able to read up about them.

[Kistulot]

1 minute ago, Rudra said:

That's what the "Fallen but not Forgotten" forum is for. Is to be a memorial to our fallen players and let others be able to read up about them.

It's also on the forums, which I don't blame some people for not wanting to visit.

[ScarySai]

18 minutes ago, Rudra said:

That's what the "Fallen but not Forgotten" forum is for. Is to be a memorial to our fallen players and let others be able to read up about them.

 

"We have the memorial at home."

[GM_GooglyMoogly]

Well, now that we have an official answer from Widower, we can close out here and talk about other stuff, including paying our respects to fallen comrades.

[Cipher]

I've reopened this thread for the purpose of discussing alternative options as long as the discussion remains civil. We'll be closely monitoring this thread and handing out warnings and bans to offenders.

 

For the sake of discussion, as I mentioned in this post, our team has been throwing ideas around internally for what options we might have for players to be able to create their own memorials, but we aren't able to commit to anything right now, and any solution that we can come up with would not likely happen in the immediate term. We really like the idea of being able to create costumed / named entities in bases like the holograms that appear in some missions, but we need to assess the viability of this idea from a technical perspective as it would involve creating new systems and embedding the costume data inside of the base container.

[lemming]

4 hours ago, Cipher said:

We really like the idea of being able to create costumed / named entities in bases like the holograms that appear in some missions, but we need to assess the viability of this idea from a technical perspective as it would involve creating new systems and embedding the costume data inside of the base container.

I really like this idea as well if it can be done.   Some directory would be helpful for memorial bases.   (And some sort of plaque system inside bases where some text could be done, but I think I'm thinking beyond the current scope)

[tidge]

If costume holograms for memorializing other characters are a thing, and AFAIK costumes can only be shared (outside of the game itself), there would probably need to be a mechanism to "grab" another player's costume (and body scales, whatever)... and for characters not actually logged in, this would provide a further issue.

 

I don't know if implementing a slash command to try to grab another player's costume file (of which any character may have more than one) would be well received, and asking for the devs to provide one outside the game would likely present issues.

[ZacKing]

5 hours ago, Cipher said:

We really like the idea of being able to create costumed / named entities in bases like the holograms that appear in some missions, but we need to assess the viability of this idea from a technical perspective as it would involve creating new systems and embedding the costume data inside of the base container.

 

This is an excellent idea as it gives everyone the opportunity to create a memorial they feel best fits their needs.  Thank you.

 

25 minutes ago, lemming said:

(And some sort of plaque system inside bases where some text could be done, but I think I'm thinking beyond the current scope)

 

You can create plaque type objects in the base with text, or even entire memorial walls.  It's tedious to add each letter individually, but it can be done.

[PoptartsNinja]

5 hours ago, Cipher said:

I've reopened this thread for the purpose of discussing alternative options as long as the discussion remains civil. We'll be closely monitoring this thread and handing out warnings and bans to offenders.

 

For the sake of discussion, as I mentioned in this post, our team has been throwing ideas around internally for what options we might have for players to be able to create their own memorials, but we aren't able to commit to anything right now, and any solution that we can come up with would not likely happen in the immediate term. We really like the idea of being able to create costumed / named entities in bases like the holograms that appear in some missions, but we need to assess the viability of this idea from a technical perspective as it would involve creating new systems and embedding the costume data inside of the base container.

 

What about a section of memorial plaques along the raised fountains along either side of the Statesman memorial in Kallisti Wharf that list as many names as a text block can handle?

 

There would have to be some official means to submit a request for players to be added; but if you leave one or two with otherwise blank plaques that read from a local, editable text file, people could update that text file on their own if they want to have a personalized memorial for someone very special, or who played back in live but never made it to Homecoming, or who was a hero in their own personal life but has passed on, or anything else they'd care to write in? Since that file would be local and basically a semi-official mod, I feel like there would be no risk.

Edited December 16 by PoptartsNinja

[Arcanum]

So just to keep the convo and ideas productive (because yes, we are reviewing the possibility of all the ideas being shared) - gonna quote Cipher from the other thread.
 

Quote

The reason for this policy is not because we are simply unwilling or because we don't care, it is in place because we have already seen how this can go wrong, it is a much more involved process than you'd expect, and we'd rather find another solution - ideally one that also reduces the burden on our volunteer team and puts the power in the community's hands.

Whatever possibility or solution gets decided (and again as Cipher said, it is unlikely to be immediate), it would involve putting the tributes/memorials into the player's hands. So permanent map fixtures and plaques (which have been discussed before) are unlikely outside of base elements that players can create. Although I'm sure as everyone knows, anything relating to bases is - shall we say, less than ideal given how that entire code system works.

[Techwright]

From the standpoint of player-created memorials, what if we took our thinking outside of the box?  The "box" being the game, that is.  If I recall correctly, in the original game were there not player-created webpages that displayed information about living players related to various supergroups?  Perhaps I'm thinking of another MMO.  It is those former works that I suggest might provide inspiration.  I recall a lot of variation in this, everything from "here's their global and screenshots of their characters" to detailed descriptions of their in-game nature, to real-life photos and a paragraph on their real-life nature.  While the latter of these would not fit the game and forum guidelines, perhaps it might be an optional part of any consideration for outside of the game and forum. 

 

Could a standard among players be reached as to what should appear on such a page for either living or deceased, and pages be created and added to a commonly agreed upon website?  Say, for example, a section within the Unofficial Homecoming Wiki set aside for this?  Players already are helping by contributing to the upkeep of the wiki, so perhaps, at least as a temporary solution, a section could be created.  If temporary, that would at least allow for time for a slower, more-thorough process of considering more permanent solutions, and it would keep all information collected and ready to go if a more-satisfying solution were discovered.  We could then add links in the Fallen But Not Forgotten section directing viewers to more information found in the collected repository.  Or perhaps, if the wiki is rejected as an option, an entirely new repository could be created and maintained.

 

Just my 2 cents.