Memphis_Bill

/this.

There's absolutely ZERO consideration for AT, "kill shot," proximity or any of the other BS he's spreading. It is 100% *random.* I've gone months (having 50s in every AT, by the way) without getting a purple, and I've gotten three in one to two missions. (And, of interest to the OP and his support characters, one of those runs was on an Ice/Emp controller. I'm reasonably sure the other was also on a support character - those are mostly what I play.)

The closest I can see to AT having ANY effect is that some are going to handle mass amounts of enemies better. More enemies = more defeats = more chances for something to drop. However, AT as a factor the game takes into account for "Will I drop a purple or not?" Not true.

... because it's not true and wouldn't last a day if someone put it there. Typically the *more experienced* people edit the Wiki and add/correct information. So some nonsense like he's spewing would be gone before the day is out.

Have you asked *Why* three months?

Simple answer: That's what the scripts were set to previously.

First script parameters for marking name as available (note, not genericing) :
- 90 days inactive
- Under level 35

Second script:
- 90 days inactive
- Under level 6

So 90 days is not a stretch *or* unreasonable... at least by NC's prior standards. (I'll note in my copypasta I only left it at 90 days for trials, increasing to 180 for inactive accounts.)

Powers:
- Turn red.
- Turn others red.
- Group Redness.
- Slight blush.
- Rose-Colored Glasses (everyone sees the map as red.)
- Scarlettify.
- Summon Baron. (Small red triplane starts flying around, short lived gun-drone.)
- School of Salmon (Like school of sharks, but fewer teeth and more redness.)
- Comrades! (Everyone shares everything while spouting Marxist quotes.)

Through the Help menu. There's a dropdown you can select it in. (If we weren't in maintenance, I'd grab a screenshot for you.)

Read what I said. I (and anyone else, thus the reason for me putting server and character name information out) can check this at will, assuming the servers are up.
Pinnacle:


It certainly wasn't run yesterday. They may have *said* they can run it "at any time without notice," but (a) they show no inclination to run it "in the near future," (b) I've asked via PM in the past before and have gotten the same answer, and (c) historically when they HAVE run it they've given us a heads up, and I don't see the dev or community team attitude changing on that.

Not really - the red line would have handled different areas. And if you look in (for instance) Boomtown, you'll see it's ... not quite up to running.

(Which brings back the "Why hasn't boomtown been updated?" but that's a different subject.)

Anyone bother pointing back to him that it hasn't been run in over- what did I say, 1292 - days?

1292/365 = 3.5 years (and a bunch more after the decimal.)

Um...

isn't that exactly what he said - that it didn't belong in suggestions? Which, by posting the description, you essentially agreed with - then said "try again?"

I'd say both are a pain if I just want to (say) make sure I had the same face (just swapping out from using a helmet, for instance.) Saving/loading a costume = redoing everything when loaded.

Much faster to just look - say "Face 7," switch and use it. Except, of course, for that 30 second timer.

(And I'm laughing at the "to keep you from dominating encounters!" for the lost curing wand. "Look at him go, getting 0 XP!" ... really?)

/this.

Plus, I get my FF/DP character only as a defender.

A couple, actually, that I can articulate plainly. I use it throughout gameplay... as "anti-scatter," typically. Needless to say I find it *extremely* annoying to be told that no, I don't actually use it that way and something that doesn't do the same thing would be better, by someone who has never played with me.

There's not enough "Hell no" in any language, any civilization, any life form that exists, may exist or has existed throughout the life of the universe to represent my reaction to this sort of idea. It's one of the things I hate about VEATs.

<tangent>

IF they'd moved the branching earlier - say level 10 - on those, kept those first few basic powers and used it to select which way you want after, I'd have had no problem with it. As an idea for a mechanic, I was ok with it in beta. In play? I feel like if I'm going (for instance) Crab/Bane, I'm wasting 23 levels, and if I'm going Huntsman, I'm forced into a respec I don't want/need.
</tangent>
And I *certainly* don't want the option of going triform taken away from me.

That said, it's a radical enough change to the AT that it has a less-than-zero chance of ever being even slightly considered.

I do, with modifications, primarily because it hasn't been run in years and we've got a fair number of trials and whatnot that are sitting inactive that won't be converted. (Like my "test-trial.") Trial accounts should, frankly, have the fewest amount of "rights" as far as keeping names. If they don't convert quickly, they likely *won't* convert, and I think 90 days there is fair.

I do also think that there should be an option to voluntarily delete the account and/or free the names if inactive. I mean, if I finally decide to quit the game for good, I've got 290 some characters. Now, while I doubt most of them would have names people would be interested in, I'm sure there are a few people WOULD be. But deleting a large number of characters by hand is tedious - and I'd probably just say "the heck with it." Being able to tell customer service "Hey, wipe my account clean" either on the exit survey or via email (with some sort of verification) would be nice. Same with people who just aren't coming back - give them the option or a way to clear their account voluntarily. or if there's absolutely no way of getting ahold of them and a reasonable attempt has been made after several years, automatically.

Ahhh, names. Yes, it's time for another Copypasta! I really need theme music for these. I'm going to skip the "How to search" info on this and just tell you, yes, you've brought up something mentioned frequently. This copypasta was created to go over some of the relevant and often brought up points about names, freeing names and the like.

The usual arguments:

1. "All the good names are gone."

First, you will probably not ever get agreement from me on this. But, "Good" is also a very subjective term. Quite often, though, the rule is "Something that would be brought up on a comic book cover."

Let's look at some of what's been on comic book covers:
Superman's Friend Jimmy Olson
Archie
Agent (insert name or number here.)
<rank> <name> - such as Sgt. Fury.
Squirrel Girl
Dead Meat
Cyber Crush (I swear I've seen this sort in game.)
Cyberrad
Congorilla
(moving out of the Cs...)
Dark Wolf
Fish Police
Flamingo

... I mean, come on, I'm not even halfway through the alphabet in a random sampling from here.

The point of this? That "Being on a comic book cover" is not limited to the most... let's call it "simplified" (or "duh obvious") and serious names. And yet, you should be able to get some wheels churning on names just from that short list.

2. "All the good names are gone, the sequel: The Script Shall Free Us All."

Yes, NCSoft has a script they can *manually* run to mark names meeting a certain level and inactivity threshhold as free. They've run it twice. Once, it was "Under level 35, 90 days inactivity on the account." The second time, due to the results of what was freed/taken, it was reduced to "Under level 6." Apparently not many names were freed up.

HOWEVER:
Go to Pinnacle, even if it's not your home server. Check on the name "That guy with bots." I created that on a temp account long ago, and use it to see if the script has been run without an announcement. It's a level 1 character on an inactive account - in any run of the script, that name should be freed up. As of the time of writing, it's been inactive (and unavailable) for 1292 days.

That said, the assumption that's often made is that running this script will free up all sorts of new and wonderful names that "everyone" wants - well, not necessarily.

On the one hand, time wise, it's been longer since they ran the script than the time the game had *existed* before.
On the other, those names could (and often are) held by people who are currently playing the game. or they're copyrighted (but someone lucked into it early before it was taken on the "Not authorized" list.) Running it *may* do more good - we don't know.

3. "I have them on my friends list/sent them an email and they never replied, they're obviously gone!"

No, not true. Unless you're on 24/7/365, you don't know that that person is on. Even if they ARE on, they may be on /hide and not showing up for various reasons (or forgot to go off of hide after doign a bunch of crafting or whatever other reason they had.) Or they may play more frequently on another server. Your email could have been missed - or just deleted as "spam" (or just "I don't know them, they're gone.")

For instance, if you wanted (for some sick reason) "Memphis Bill," well... I don't stick with one character. I'm on every server, two accounts, 290-some characters. My email has stuff I'm transferring between characters, so just having the "Email" bit red doesn't really tell me anything. A tell? I get so much stuff scrolling by it's likely I'd miss an offline tell. And depending on the server, I may not play "Memphis Bill" very often.

So, you may check on "Memphis Bill" on Freedom (where I rarely play) and decide, hey, that's actually inactive, why can't I have the name? Sorry, it's not - you just don't *see* me on there. (That character tends to stay on /hide, as well.)

Now, you can use /getglobalname (thanks for the reminder) - if the character doesn't have one, no, they haven't been on in a long, long time. (Globals came in sometime after I started back in I3 (so about the I4 timeframe, IIRC.) However, that's also a high level character (35+) which NCSoft decided to leave alone the first script run, figuring people would be more upset and *not* come back if they lost their high levels names. Plus:

4. It's been X long, they're obviously not coming back!

I'd ask you to watch the boards and the game. It's not *in*frequent to see "hey, I've been gone 3-4-5 years, what's changed?" Not a daily occurance, but certainly not rare.

5. Use Cryptic's system, so anyone can use the same name!

I detest Cryptic's system. Besides, we have 11... wait, Euro-merge, 15 servers, unlike Cryptic's single-big-server setup. I happen to *like* knowing that I'm the only one of my character on a server, and can't be confused with anyone else. I'm strongly against a change to this.


Now, about that script and if it should be run or not....

I'm actually in favor of running the script - or rather, making multiple scripts and running them.

Script 1: Trial accounts that haven't converted in 90 days.

I figure 90 days from the end of a trial is enough to tell, hey, they're not coming back. Run this regularly, say, every six months, and clear everything - including global.

Script 2: Voluntary deletion

Sent out to inactive accounts after a year, this allows you to say "Yes, I want you to clear my character names" if you really feel you're not coming back. (With plenty of "This will not be undone.")

Script 3: Level 14 and lower, 180 days inactive

Mostly bumping up the level since it HAS been so long. Run once a year.

What about the no-Globals? Put them in the "Send an email." Send a followup 90 days later with a message about the names getting freed up. If both bounce, mark as available. If there's no reply to either, mark as available.

And about names:

There are plenty of ways to get names. I don't agree that "All the good ones are gone." And I don't mean "Go into the dictionary/thesaruus and turn "Red Man" into "russet homosapien male." But the thesaurus can help.

Consider your character - who they are, what they are, their powers.

- Go ahead and try the obvious. I've been surprised to get "Clair de Lune" and (much more recently) "Home Guard," for instance.

- Were they former military, are they a mercenary? Then give them a rank! "Mindripper" taken? Well, you're a superpowered mercenary. See if Major (or Maj.) Mindripper is free. And VEATs should give you any number of examples of Agent this-that.

- Are you a scientist? Doctor (or Dr.) something's pretty common there.

- Color: You can't (obviously) get the Green Arrow? How about Pointed Jade, for the mystic arrowheads you found that led to this life of a hero (or villain?) Or Distant Jade for both the range of your power and your character's aloofness?

- "Name" names do work, too.

- Name + Descriptor - descriptor can be anything. Just look at my forum name - Memphis Bill. Pick something distinctive - though yeah, assume the obvious will be taken ("Red Robin" probably isn't available.)

- Use synonyms. "Red" something isn't available? Try Scarlet.

- Turn it around, play with spacing. "Red Ripper" isn't available, how about Ripper Red? Or Rip-Red? Heck, capitalize it for your assassin and work the R.I.P. side of it. RIP-Red.

- Use all of the above. "Black Hole" isn't available, how about Ebon Void, which adds a touch of the exotic - or Ebonvoid, or the leader of a stellar expedition, Dr. Ebonvoid, who was empowered by the experience even as his mind was twisted... and so forth.

/agreed.

Toss one in per costume pack. Let me buy a bunch of them at once. I'd go for *maybe* one in the Incarnate system given that they're giving armor for that, but the others should be much more easily available, much earlier.

Not an oops. Read the lore - the red line was destroyed in the first Rikti invasion, the yellow and green lines took on the Red Line livery in honor of it.

Because we have ALL THOSE EXTRA UNUSED SLOTS, right. How silly of me, and here I am six slotting Rest because like every other Kheld I have nothing else to put them in!

You want a base-ic guide?

(May actually have to write that up.)

Fixed.

"Long gone?"

Neither of those were ever here, really, outside of personal preference (or the need to learn what everything else does.)