Bloodspeaker

You quoted yourself?

I smell pi.

Oooh, yeah, I've been wanting the name "Heeiiadndds" for a LONG time!

Yes, I kid.

Yes, would be very bad form to do this any time before, and for several months after, GR's release.

I obviously read my own posts. As I said, I was simply "responding in kind" to the prior, unwarranted snark.

Anyway, since we seem to be back on "civil"...

And yes, I moved the character anyhow. It was that, or delete him, really. That decision had absolutely nothing to do with my (in)ability to get the name I wanted. Again, to be crystal clear, it was because I no longer had significant opportunities to play him on teams composed of people I know and enjoy playing with. If I personally believed in PLing characters, I'd have created an alternate version of him, under a different name. I simply want to play him, not "play him again", so to speak.

While I've read the entire thread, I can't recall what your specific inactivity was, but I don't recall it even really falling within the scope of the kinda of changes being suggested. Since it's reasonably safe to assume you're referring to a 50, you'd have to have been inactive for roughly 4-5 years. Unless I have missed something significant in the thread, no one is suggesting purging names from active accounts on which certain characters have been inactive. That'd be blatantly stupid.

In any case, this is all just speculative. NC already has a stated position, with no indication that they plan on changing it, which is always a good corporate decision: you don't change it merely at the whims of the customer base.

I suppose what I'd really like is for an email to be sent to the accounts that have been inactive (unpaid, not just unused - I've taken month-long breaks from CoH myself) requesting that, if they don't plan on returning to the game, to please log in (for free, of course) and delete any characters they will forseeably never play again, to free the names up for active players.

And yes, to state the obvious, thus saving someone else from the necessity, I do realize that it won't be received by anyone that has since changed their primary email. Life goes on.

Works well in LotRO, too.

You lose 5 internets... or something...

Well, if we're talking about account inactivity, NONE of your character names are "vulnerable" as of the point where you reactivate: either they're gone, or they're not.

Exactly.

But it wouldn't be the internet if SOMEone didn't read more into it than necessary.

Yes, you are both absolutely right, I am so humbled by your collective righteousness. Obviously I should have left him on the server I started him on, instead of moving him to the server where I have since made most of my in-game friends. Leaving him on a server where I got virtually no play time was obviously the correct decision. Obviously. Thank you so much.

Now that were on the same moral and intellectual footing, I *did* research the name before I moved him... and *left* him on the server on which he was fundamentally inactive for over a month while I considered many perfectly acceptable alternate names. None of which are "his". I'd simply like to keep the name he was "born" with, and (gasp) I *have* tried contacting the current name-holder to see if they were still using, with no response.

Regarding the comment "They paid the same money that you did to both purchase the game and to subscribe for as long as they were playing", since when did we start talking about taking names from active subscribers? I didn't have any problems reading the thread title, but I understand if, in your rush to take the "moral high ground", you might have forgotten it.

To most people here, it would be obvious I don't have a problem with such a scenario, given my stated opinion. But, just to make sure you don't miss it a second time, I'm more than happy to clarify it just for the two of you:

"I don't have a problem with losing character names on my own account, in accordance with any clearly-stated account inactivity policy that defines how and when that might occur."

After all, I'm not using anything that "belongs" to me in any real sense. I'm not trying to "steal" anything that belongs to anyone else. It would be nice if they (Paragon/NCSoft) had a way of fairly freeing up names that are no longer in use, regardless of character level.

And in case another "entitlement" wasn't clear to either of you, it's perfectly okay to reply to a simply-stated opinion with your own, even on the internet. You don't need to prove your masculinity with arrogant sarcasm, oblique accusations and the like.

It's not always about coming up with a name for a new character. I have a 50 I moved from one server to another, and the name he's had for 50 levels is taken, and apparently inactive, on the server I moved him to.

I'd kinda like to keep the name he's HAD for the entire 33 months of his existence.

This, and if said player DOES return to the game, they get free rename tokens on all the characters thus genericized.

Yep, I've gotten the "What the HECK are you DOING in there?!?" chorus, myself.

They stopped asking once they'd had a look around the results.

I don't quite do all the "psycho-stacking". I like a good-looking SG base as much as the next person, but I can't leave anything half-finished, and I can't stare at the screen that intently forever without getting a migraine. Have still managed some very nice stuff with some very simple (and some not so simple) tricks.

Better to read it a second time with different glasses on, shrug, and realize you know no more or less than you did before.

What's I miss?..

Still their sandbox, we just play in it. No one's "entitled" to any kind of "preview", regardless of what anyone might think.

Though I can't help but giggle at the people who read the original statement and automatically apply a negative interpretation. It was a poorly-worded statement that could be read either way.

Silly pessimists. You're all like someone who'd complain about getting too much change back because you don't have enough room in your pocket.

Heh, I just +repped you AND called you a liar; covers all the bases.

But has anyone given you permission to recall giving Yentz permission not to resub? Hmmm?

Used to love meeting up with other MM buddies and running 6-8 MM missions. Team Lagmonster.

Haven't seen most of them in a long time tho.