GreySquirrel

CO's system wasn't ever really popular with me, and led to nothing but irritation in the RP community there. No one really notices the name@globalname system -until- you get two characters with the same name who both RP in the same group. Its really not a good idea as far as I'm concerned.

In regards to there being a lot of names out there, yeah, there's tonnes of names out there.... if you're willing to settle. If you're trying for a iconic name (that term seems to have been understood by at least one person, yey!) its much more difficult. The vast majority of those went in the first month after launch. The ones that occasionally pop up now I suspect are simply ones that have simply remained undiscovered since the last purge.

I'm noticing something here that i find a bit interesting. I haven't seen anyone who has left and come back have any sort of problem with releasing old names. Several in fact have said that they wouldn't have minded if NC had released their names while they were gone. Then on the other hand there's a group of people who seem to be opposed to it with a feeling that it might not be a good idea because if players return they might be upset. So far there's no evidence toward that point, and growing evidence in just this thread alone -against- that argument.

That leaves me wanting to ask the question, 'Why are are there people not affected by it that are concerned with it when the people it would affect are apparently not bothered by it at all?' Especially since the majority of those same people pride themselves on the fact that they choose names that no one else would anyway. Please note, I'm not saying there's not a good reason to be concerned, I'm just interested in the response.

Two points. Firstly, the number of players coming back is very low compared to the population. And we have yet to see if they even stay. Secondly, and hopefully this doesn't sound too blunt, but the subject isn't wanting specific names, its wanting some of the more creative names that have sat unused for years to be unlocked. Oddly a lot of people seem to be missing that point. We know the Virtue Name thread is there. Its not relevant to the discussion. Even a lot of the names on the thread aren't available due to players who have left.

The last name purge we had freed up about ten thousand names. I can't recall the exact figure now, as its been too long ago (and apparently posts from back then don't exist when I search for them; if anyone else remembers where they posted the count, can you link it?), and of course, not all of those names would have been names that people are dying to get, but as has been said, that's all subjective anyway. The widened pool would make it easier for everyone to get names they've been waiting on. It wouldn't -guarantee- it of course, but it would help. I know for my part (read as: the rest of this paragraph is my opinion, not saying how everyone should think), I'd rather have a name that was creative, rather than a name I got that was 5th down the list because all the other variants I could think of were taken. Sure, coming up with variants takes creativity too, but its not as satisfying as actually grabbing the name that I wanted to begin with.

In addition, just something to think about, but if someone says that good names are rarely reserved, they're basically saying that they don't have many, if any, good names. If the names were good, by that logic, they wouldn't be reserved by anyone.

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Oh, I do. ^__^ And thanks Brand for being intelligent, as usual. When I see people say stuff like that, I don't normally wonder. Trolls are fairly obvious when they don't try that hard. And I actually lucked out on a name just today, Tantalus. However, a lot of very good, one might say iconic names are sitting in purgatory because the people who chose them originally haven't logged on in years. I do think a name purge would be a good thing since its been so long, and even people who think they have all the good names they need now might find a few to work with.

EDIT: It's been mentioned that I may not have been as clear as I could have as to the goal of this thread. Hopefully this will rectify that. We are seeing more of an issue in getting names. No, its not impossible, but with every name that's taken, it cannot be denied that the pool of names shrinks. The reason for the thread is to gather thoughts on possible alternate ideas from the current naming policy, for the purpose of increasing player investment and satisfaction in the game. (In other words, the more a player likes a character, the longer they are likely to play it. On the other hand, while not liking a name may not in and of itself cause a player to become bored or unsatisfied, with the game, it is a contributing factor. 'I'm just not feeling my character right now.' Is a common phrase that's heard before people disappear. Costumes, names, and power sets are usually the things listed if they're asked. Anything that increases the enjoyment of playing the character is an incentive to keeping that player here and not elsewhere. These things become more important since there are now two other superhero MMO's, and if someone gets bored, they can simply switch to another similar game (even though we all know CoX is better :P ).

So any changes would need to have two goals.

1) Widen the pool of names available for current players.
2) Ensure that players who wish to return are impacted as little as possible.

What follows is a re-summation of the suggestions so far, so that those who don't like reading a lot can get an idea of what's been talked about without wading through a lot of text. Its a sort of combination from several people, and at this point, mostly not mine (I'd list names but I'm afraid I'd miss someone, although if someone else wants to list the names and send it to me I'll list them).

1) Players get contacted in conjunction with a free reactivation weekend shortly before (perhaps two weeks) the second year anniversary of quitting the game, or immediately if the player is already over two years.
2) Two weeks after that, if the player hasn't indicated an interest in preserving the characters, by logging into the game, the names become open.

This keeps the opportunity for previously held names to become available, but also makes names become naturally recycled into the game. If returning or inactive players wish to keep their names, they can do so easily. If they don't, any names not re-reserved could be released for current players to use.

In addition, associating this with the free reactivation weekends would also give players an opportunity to go check if the name they've been waiting on is free or not without needing to check so often.

The negative risk to this appears to be close to minimum since all players, regardless of how long they've been gone, would be able to simply log in and reserve those names again, thereby safeguarding them longer. It also provides a positive for current players, since if the names aren't re-reserved, they would become available to current players.
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ORIGINAL POST:

Its getting harder and harder to get names that don't require odd punctuation or deliberate misspellings and the like. I know in one channel I'm in I've heard no less than twenty people complaining about it this week alone. The game has been around for 6 years now. Thing is, the vast majority of the good names were taken within the first two. Now, of course, first come, first serve is fair, but I think its about time to release some of the older names that aren't played anymore.

Right now the policy is: "Names for characters below level 6 on game retail accounts that were inactive* for over 90 days were changed to unreserved status. This means that those names became available for new character names if picked by an active (subscribed) player."

We've had two rounds of temporary availability (if I recall correctly) and the last one was just shortly after I started playing, about 3 years ago. EDIT: Apparently the forums have informed me that I joined in October of 2006, so it was about a year after I joined. I hate time.

So I'm just interested in what others think on this subject. Personally, I'd like to see all names inactive for 2 years or more, regardless of the level, become available for current subscribers. Two years is more than enough time, I think for someone to decide to come back, and if they haven't, I think that's a good indication that NCSoft should be catering to current subscribers rather than past ones.

Frankly, I'm not inclined to RPPvP for most stories at all. Even the name is a misnomer. There's a couple reasons for that.

1. When you're PvPing, you have no time to RP.
2. RPPvP replaces creativity and role-playing with speed-twitch ability.

I have a character who's quite good at PvP, but I don't RPPvP with her. Simply put, she's not supposed to be as powerful as she is in PvP, and I'm not about to abuse a game system that wasn't designed for RP in order to let her win. So while taking a random fight to the arena is fun occasionally (as in, your character won't stop bugging me and I have nothing to do anyway), its not a good tool for ongoing RP, because it forces mechanics not intended to interact with RP into RP, and that never goes well, regardless of whether its an MMO or a pen and paper game.

Then there's the other side of the issue, as to why RPPvP is usually needed. Apophasis does have a good point there, that sometimes, there's not agreement as to where a story should head, and there's no good way to decide, other than the arena. That's a shame, really, but its also more common than it needs to be. That's mostly due to the newer generation of RPers not knowing about (or rejecting) what's called the RPer's Contract (and there's a lot of different names for it, that's just the one I first heard). Probably many who are reading this thread already know what that is, but for those who don't, I'll try to encapsulate briefly.

1. Don't play other people's characters for them. This means ever really, including things like this. (Incorrect: "I smash my fist into your nose." Correct: "I swing my fist at your nose.")

2. Don't godmode. Your character shouldn't ever be able to block everything, dodge everything, always hit, be immune to everything, etc. If you're in a fight, take a few punches. Yeah, you're superpowered. So's the other guy. (Unless she's explicity not, of course.)

3. No meta-gaming (knowing stuff your character wouldn't know on his own).

If those guidelines are applied, 99% of any disagreements can be handled without needing to resort to non-RP solutions. Problem is, players that are actually capable of using those guidelines are becoming fewer and fewer.

If you (and the people you RP with) are able to use those guidelines, you'll never have to worry about needing to use PvP at all to settle anything. If you (or the people you RP with) can't or won't use them, then RPPvP comes in, because all RPPvP is, is a crutch for an inability to resolve character issues through RP.

(In order to keep from derailing this thread, if there's going to be some sort of debate over the guidelines themselves as opposed to the nature of the statement, IM me, or poke me in RPVirtue, or copy the rules to a new thread or something, please.)

Edit: I neglected to mention at all the OP's addressing of RPPvP events. I'm actually for the events, provided they've got an actual story behind them, and aren't just a scheduled excuse to pretend like you're RPing.

If this has been said before, ignore me, but I've waded through enough posts to drive me more insane than I am, and didn't see it.

The newest version of Mids is slightly bugged. Ninja Run replaces Energy Flight at level 8 for PB's and WS's.

The Fix:

1. Go to menu: Options > Advanced > Database Editor...
2. Open Main Database Editor.
3. Click Inherent in the Group frame.
4. Scroll down and click Prestige_Ninja_Run in the Power frame.
5. Click Edit.
6. In the lower right-hand corner of the Edit Power window, you will see a field named Inherent Index. Change the number from 4 to 17.
7. Click OK.
8. Click Save and Close.

You will need to reopen any characters you already had open in order to see the change. Also, although this has been tried and tested by several people, it is as always, never a bad idea to make a backup before testing changes.

Here's my little door.



Not quite done with the whole room yet, but that bit is.

I've found that you can generally make most teams work as long as the people are:

a) Intelligent
b) Awake
c) Sober

(b and c are optional)

There's only two types of person I refuse to team with.

1) Those that don't understand that team =/= run 8 different ways on a map and complain that the difficulty is too hard when they die.

2) People (of whatever AT) that go on follow and spam one or two powers without actively contributing.

Other than that, I'm good!

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