Who is Max: ?

[Harl]

On several occasions, and once in Steel Canyon, I have noticed a black background bubble with red text.  It always starts with "Max:" then there is other text which disappears before I can read it.  It never appears in any of my active chat options.  So the big question is, WHO IS MAX?  Is it a ghost player left over from the demise of the original game?  Have I stumbled onto a real life version of the Matrix?  Is Free Guy real?

 

 

[MoonSheep]

he is a player, i don’t understand the issue fully but essentially his character name is the same as an NPC name. as a result, when he speaks it appears on everyone’s screen as character dialogue

[arcane]

If a chat bubble showed up for every player serverwide each time I had a comment to make in general chat, I would hope I would have the decency to just not talk in general chat. Oh well. 

[Ghost]

Surprised they haven’t made him change his name

[Harl]

Thanks for the replies.  I am relieved that long time gaming has addled my grey matter.  Well not too much. 

[Demobot]

It's simple:

 

Max hax. 

[mistagoat]

Really? That's so disappointing! I thought they were seeding a new event with "max" at the center to be revealed soon.

The reality is so lame!

Edited Monday at 05:24 PM by mistagoat

[Snarky]

[Neiska]

I choose to believe it’s Mad Max looking for Master and Blaster.

[Ridiculous Girl]

3 hours ago, MoonSheep said:

he is a player, i don’t understand the issue fully but essentially his character name is the same as an NPC name. as a result, when he speaks it appears on everyone’s screen as character dialogue

it's more complicated than that... it has something to do with the name and something with a database... but when max talks, it you are on the same channel that max is talking on, their voice may project into vitually anything. i have even had it coming out of my own character on one occasion. 😄

[Scarlet Shocker]

Clearly this was heroside, so it must've been this guy

 

 

[Player2]

6 hours ago, Snarky said:

Beat me to it...  😎

[Octogoat]

This is now a Max Headroom thread.

 

 

[High_Beam]

Art of Noise and Max Headroom, a double throwback.

[Player2]

My nostalgia button has been pushed.

[mechahamham]

Every time I've seen Max outside a mission, he's inevitably got a GM right with him. I imagine he gets reported all the time and so the GMs just hang out with him.

 

It's not something he does or even wants to do on purpose, but he's apparently attached to the character.

 

The GMs and devs are obviously aware of the problem, but there are two issues facing them:

 

CoH is SPAGHETTI, and a lot of the dev work that's been done on it since volunteers have been working on it is untangling the mess. There's always a noodle of code touching something it shouldn't. Max's bug is an example of that. Changing the way it works may (almost certainly *will*) have unintended side-effects.

 

Second, it's that volunteer thing. We have an entirely volunteer dev and GM staff who work on the game for free. They have to do the coding on their own time, at home, at their own expense, and largely with their own computer hardware. They've never been able to accept financial compensation for their work and nobody buys them laptops to connect to the development server instances.

 

Do you want those volunteers fixing a highly visible, but very limited scope bug, or do you want them fixing less visible, but more important bugs? Prioritizing development work is always a difficult problem, even when you can pay people for the work they're doing.

[Sovera]

Sounds like a rename moment with 'Max' waking up as GenericHero023425. Easier than fix coding for this particular instance. And then lock the name out.

[Biff Pow]

Max needs to answer his phone or get off my contact list

[Techwright]

On 3/31/2025 at 2:51 PM, Ridiculous Girl said:

it's more complicated than that... it has something to do with the name and something with a database... but when max talks, it you are on the same channel that max is talking on, their voice may project into vitually anything. i have even had it coming out of my own character on one occasion. 😄

 

I'm so glad I'd read this before last night.  I'd not previously encountered this phenomena.  I was building in my unfinished base last night, was facing a wall at one end of a large room, and suddenly saw a speech balloon coming from somewhere behind me...in a base no one else has entered.  I don't even have a base passcode yet, and I had the chat window closed.  So it really creeped me out.  I turned to find the message coming from my Vanguard enhancements NPC, and finally noticed it was Max. Because of your comment, I realized what had happened.  I opened the chat window and saw Max had posted on the Help Channel.

[Octogoat]

Save Max. Keep Max alive!