Liquid

No problem. Thanks for explaining.

I think the core of this whole discussion is a value difference. Some people value uniqueness more than the ability to get whatever name they feel fits their character best, and some people value the latter more than the former. You're right that most of us probably can't come to an agreement over it, outside of something game companies almost never do (PvP being an exception), like having a set of servers with unique names and a set with non-unique ones. Of course, that kind of defeats the primary reason I think the devs have interest in non-unique naming systems: Positron has expressed a desire for a "serverless" system like That Other Game had, to increase teaming opportunities. To add that to CoH, names would have to be made non-unique. I think that's why he asked about it at HeroCon.

I feel similar, but I would feel different about a new game, for the reasons I've posted before when explaining why I support non-unique names.

I've been totally civil to you. I merely asked for clarification because I want to understand your perspective. There's no reason to talk down to me.

This is an appeal to the genre, which is a valid thing to do, but not related to my question about character concept.

I do notice, however, that you agree that it does happen, but you dismiss it when it happens because it's rare, and usually temporary. I'm not saying you shouldn't dismiss it (some arguments and points should be dismissed), but I want to make it clear that this is what you are doing. People supporting non-unique naming have been accused of ignoring and dismissing the arguments of people supporting unique names. It's going on on both sides, as usual for debates, especially on the internet.

This aside wasn't really directed at you, as I don't recall you making that complaint.

"Diluting the concept" is what I'm having trouble understanding, but thanks for giving me a term for it. I understand what the phrase must mean-- having someone else with your name somehow makes your character concept less... potent. I just don't know why. Currently, there is no unique requirement for costumes, bios, or builds, all important aspects of a character concept, yet I've never seen anybody ask for any of these things to be enforced as unique. Does it not dilute your concept if someone else uses the same costume, bio, or build, as well?

Other people's character concepts have zero bearing on my character concepts. Maybe I'd be annoyed if someone copied my character in some significant way, because it would feel like they stole my ideas, but my character still retains his or her concept. The only way someone else could affect my character concept in any way is if they hacked my account and changed my name, costume, powers, or bio in some way that I couldn't revert. This is why it's confusing to me that someone else's name could have any effect on your character concept. I understand it impacting you in other ways that have been brought up in this thread, but not character concept.

I'm not seeing any explanation as to how name uniqueness is a part of character concept. I see an explanation as to why it irritates you to see people with the same name, but I don't understand what that has to do with character concept. Can you clarify?

You said that you feel name is an important part of character concept, and your conclusion is that names should be unique. I want to understand how you got from "name is an important part of character concept" to "names should be unique".

But he said "the name is a vital part of the character concept", not just "the names are very important". So I'm asking how sole ownership improves character concept.

I understand what YOU are saying. I don't think it matches with what Kiken was saying.

I appreciate the attempt to help clarify, but I'm going to wait until he responds to respond further on that sub-topic, because my goal here is to understand what he meant, not someone else's interpretation of what he meant. That sounds kind of harsh, but I don't know how else to say it. I don't mean any offense, but I do understand your perspective already.

The bolded part was added by you, and isn't about character concept. It's about unique identity, which is an argument I do understand.

If the person who I was asking for an explanation wants to agree with you, then that's fine and I understand their argument, but then the part about agreeing on the fundamental point yet still disagreeing on what it means is not applicable.

I agree that there is emotion on both sides, but there is also logic on both sides. Some people can feel emotionally one way, but logically be persuaded the other way. There will never be full agreement (on any topic of any kind), but there can be understanding, and some minds could be changed.

Can you explain why you view it as a compelling reason not to?

If I make a character, and there is one (or maybe 10, but all are currently used) ideal name that describes that character, allowing duplicate names allows me to make that character with the name that fits it the most.

If I want to make a character and I can't pick one of those names... how does that improve my character concept?

I'll give a simple example, a name that is likely to be commonly thought of, but it's the first one that came to mind for the sake of this discussion, and I'm going to describe the full concept for the character: A living version of an iron maiden, animated through sorcery and with the ability to extend its spikes on the outside and expel and regrow them-- a Spines/Invuln scrapper with the metallic spikes, and a metallic costume. The perfect name for this character is Iron Maiden.

In what way does it improve my concept if someone else made a Fire/Kin controller, hit the random costume button, and picked the name Iron Maiden first?

I know and understand all the arguments for unique names that I've seen so far, but the idea that not allowing duplicate names somehow improves the ability to deliver a character concept is new to me and I don't understand it.

I want you to know that I agree with this statement, but I'm not sure it applies here until I understand how restricting duplicate names helps one achieve their character concept.

There is one more condition: the copyright term ends. It used to be that this was a maximum of 28 years from publication (14 + 14 more if the author was still alive to extend it). Now it's 95 years. This number continues to be raised by corporations lobbying congress to increase it.

I'm saying I disagree with current copyright and trademark law as it applies to fictional characters.

Anyone can write stories about or involving Dracula and Frankenstein. When will this be the case for Superman and Batman? Never. Even if DC Comics goes under, the rights will be purchased by someone else, and corporations will continue to lobby congress to extend copyright length. I disagree with that.

Maybe he's not counting the time that Rick Dakan was in charge. You know, that guy that came up with CoH in the first place and was lead designer for the first few years of development? The guy that wrote the bulk of the story bible, created Nemesis and the Fifth Column and probably most of the other groups we know, yet somehow only got a "special thanks" in the original manual, not even a design or writing credit for all the work he put in?

1.5 years is about the amount of time from when Rick was fired to when the game launched.

I don't know what the deal was with that split outside of the very vague details from interviews in Forbes and Gamasutra, but I do know that everyone acts like Jack invented CoH, and I think it's really weird.

Your avatar reminds me: weren't Jay Garrick and Wally West both active as The Flash at the same time and on the same world for several years, just on different teams? I never read JSA, but I know Power Girl was in it, and Power Girl was hanging out with some JLAers in some comics that I was reading from the early 2000s (pre-Infinite Crisis).

I'm actually against these aside from trial accounts, because this game has a lot people that return after being gone for years, and wiping out their names is a good way of increasing the chances that they either don't come back at all if they hear about it, or don't stay when they find out the hard way (and perhaps they'll even demand a refund).

I want you to know that I understand this, and I'm even pretending that I agree with it to get my point across, which follows your next statement:

Some, yes. But not nearly enough for me, because I don't agree that some or even most people's opinions outweigh one guy wanting to name his character Captain Awesome or even oXP Z Y K OXo (which I do think goes against the genre). To me, it's no different than enforcing unique costumes.

Yeah, that's why I am stating my opinion and trying to make sure it is clear, not demanding a change. If the developers are still considering such a change, they should research the issues that CO has had with non-unique names, estimate the risks of subscription loss based on changing to such a system from people angry over it, and carefully decide whether they want to do it here.

I want to be clear: I didn't say it was a facet of emotion and lacked logical backing. I said I understood it from an emotional standpoint, and that it wasn't logically persuading. That doesn't mean that there is no logic in the argument, I just don't find it persuading.

My opinion on this is very simple:

Let's say John Smith wants a particular name for his character.

Let's also say that 20,000 people don't want John to have that name for his character for a variety of reasons.

Unless John is using that name to harass people, the name is too vulgar for the game's rating, or the name is copyrighted (I'd rather I didn't have to have the exception for copyrighting under current conditions. Superman and Batman should have entered the public domain decades ago), I will side with John every time, even if I *HATE* his name or he is using the same name as one of my or my friends' characters. I think someone's opinion about John's name never trumps John's right to make his character how he wants to outside of those conditions.

But as far as this game goes, because of the reasons Chase stated about changing a naming scheme, I'm not arguing aggressively for a change to CoH. I'd be happy if it was done, but I'm happy without it, too.

That's a perfect example of what I meant by "offensive". You think it commits an offense against the genre. Similarly, I think lots of currently allowable and widely used kinds of names go against the genre and cheapen the experience. In short, I find them offensive. But I don't think that's a valid reason to keep people from using those names.

I don't agree with you that duplicate names goes against the genre, but for the sake of this particular sub-thread, I'm going to act as though I do agree with you for simplicity's sake.

A lot of decisions are made that go against the genre in a game, for the sake of gameplay. I think this is one of those decisions that should be made for superhero games, because I think being free to choose the name that fits the most is very important when creating your own superhero, more important than making sure that it is the only superhero with that name.

I know you disagree, I just wanted to explain what I meant in the post you responded to.

I agree with Chase's response to this, but I wanted to mention that I'd do the same thing you describe to a comic that featured characters with names like -Sarah and xXK I L L AXx. Yet I have to deal with people like that on every zone event or raid, and to make things worse, the raid leader usually has a name like one of those (note that I'd be nearly as unhappy with "Sarah" and "Killa"). This is why I prefer 8-or-less person instanced missions/TFs, where I get to pick who I team with, so I can avoid ridiculous teammate situations.

I've seen three categories of arguments given against non-unique names. The first is over griefing/mistaken identity concerns, which is a valid complaint that should be researched to determine how much more of a problem it is than what we currently have with punctuation and slight spelling differences ("No, with an A. D-A-N-T.") before considering a non-unique naming system.

The second category is concerns about how it will be handled. This includes the inelegance of @global being appended to names. These are valid concerns, but it's important to remember that there is more than one solution. Attacking the one that has already been heavily mitigated (by allowing it to be hidden unless necessary) is not very effective.

The third category appears to be "I find the idea of multiple people having the same name/someone else getting the name I got, to be offensive". I think this is as valid as wanting to enforce your own personal naming requirements on the population, such as no punctuation, misspellings, or hyphens in other people's names. I don't really find this argument to be compelling. I understand it from an emotional standpoint (I really wish everyone that played would make characters that fit my idea of what a superhero is), but it's not logically persuading.

I agree with you, and this is why I won't argue very aggressively for a change for CoH at this point.

However, for any new superhero MMO, I would aggressively argue that they use a naming system that allows for duplicate names. I think that in the superhero genre, the name is a critical part of character creation, and enforcing unique names is like enforcing unique costumes in my mind.

That's Apex. I hope they consider changing him to look like that.

Also, thrilled to hear the news on the Fitness pool. THRILLED!

Your Gunslinger example definitely sounds silly, but I don't think there is anything wrong with Tsoo Sorcerers. Teleporting all over the area (I've never seen them go too far) and healing/debuffing is what makes them interesting. They're usually still close enough to hit with ranged attacks after a few steps, and if not, you can get one of their buddies down to half health and they'll teleport right back in. It does add some difficulty, but I think it's way better than just cranking up Hp/Def/Res/Damage/debuffs.

I think the Tsoo are one of the best designed groups in the game, and I think Sorcerer AI is half of what makes them so great. I think the Yellow Ink Men could spam controls a little less often, and Ancestral Spirits should not get Knockout Blow, but the variety and behavior differences in the mobs make them great.

I agree with this. The "run a little bit and shoot from range" behavior of Eagles and non-AV Witches makes them interesting. It's behavior that makes them seem more alive, and causes me to try to use tactics or specific powers to counter it.

The "run all over the map like a nutcase, and then come back as if nothing happened" behavior is just terrible. Toggle-debuffed Scrapyard is ridiculous.

I think the problem with runners (I mean the morale breaking ones, not the script based ones) isn't simply that they run, but that they run with no purpose. They do crazy things like running all over the entire map, or running a long way away, only to give up and wander back as if they don't know that there are 8 superhuman death engines waiting for them in the very spot that they ran from. If runners ran to the next spawn and joined it, or ran to an elevator or out the door and counted as a defeat for the purpose of completing the mission, I think players wouldn't hate them so much. Running to another spawn and causing them to attack the players is another option, but it would need to be rare. Having that happen every other spawn would get annoying very quickly.

This another one of those problems that is exacerbated by CoH's mission design. There are other possibilities, but the mission designs generally wouldn't support them even if you had the tech ready. If you were in a high-tech villain lair, a runner might run to a control room and lower a blast door or activate base defenses that the players have to deal with. But when you're in a nonsensical 4 story maze skinned like an office with single floor elevators at opposite ends of each story, populated randomly with groups of 3-14 people 100 feet apart from each other, it makes it hard to create AI that does anything that isn't perceived as futile or ridiculous.

Edit: That sounds really harsh. Let it be known that I love this game, but I consider the basic design of missions to be one of its biggest flaws.

Philosophies like these are what make a great game designer.

Thank you, War Witch, I know that we continue to be in good hands.

True.

I agree, and I'm going to withdraw my suggestion. I made it with a very narrow context of "all buffs should have the potential to benefit all players as equally as possible". In the scope of the game as a whole, I think this buff (and the Magic Pack buff as well) should have been designed with much lower general effectiveness. I think the themed pack powers should have continued along the lines of the Self Destruct power: fun to use if it fits the character, but you don't feel like you're intentionally forgoing a significant bonus or denying your teammates if you choose not to use it because it doesn't fit the character.

Another thing that could have been done with these: instead of being free to all characters on the account, they could opened up a special Power Pool power that you still had to spend a power pick on. That way, while you'd see people with the ability to read your fortune, run like a Ninja, and mutate themselves, it wouldn't be darn near everyone, and Self Destruct could have been made a lot more effective. It is obviously too late to change them to that, but I felt like mentioning the idea.

That being said, the Rikti Monkey thing is awesome.