Pagan Priest

I find it funny how some of you have this oh-so-superior attitude about this topic. Saying things like they shouldn't do a name scrub because people aren't creative enough. Who died and made all of you judge, jury, and executioner on this topic? So what if some people aren't being "creative enough". That's YOUR guy's opinion on the matter and nothing else. The fact of the matter is that there are lots of great names tied up on accounts who don't pay to play this game and likely never will again. Those people shouldn't be entitled to those names because they're not paying customers. And besides, not everyone who plays this game is an adult. What do you say to the kids who aren't savvy enough to pull out a thesaurus, foreign language dictionary, etc. to find a name they like? Too bad? I don't think so. Stop having such an Elitist attitude about the matter. What does it matter to you guys whether or not a scrub is performed? If you don't like it, then fine but don't try stone-walling all of those who do. That just seems petty on your guy's part.

List of Available Names as of this posting...

1. Air Show
2. Aircraft
3. Altered Image
4. American Sun
5. Aristocat
6. Astrology
7. Astrosphere
8. Autobahn
9. Baptist
10. Barebones
11. Baron Landscape
12. Battlements
13. Bioluminescent
14. Birdbrain
15. Bloodsucker
16. Bluegrass
17. Bomb Threat
18. Broomstick
19. Cat God
20. Citizen’s Arrest
21. Communist Bloc
22. Condorman
23. Contaminated Man
24. Cosmology
25. Cretaceous
26. Crimson Cape
27. Crimson Cosmonaut
28. Doctor Divinity
29. Doctor Dreamscape
30. Dollhouse
31. Dyson Sphere
32. Early Bird
33. Fairweather Friend
34. Falsehood
35. Flood Light
36. Forewarned
37. Godspell
38. Goldsmith
39. Grassroots
40. Graviton Shield
41. He Who Kills
42. Hellfire Club
43. Holy Matrimony
44. Homing Beacon
45. Homing Missile
46. Inoculate
47. Jurassic Shark
48. Kid Caliber
49. Kilowatt Kid
50. Kimono Dragon
51. Machinery
52. Microscope
53. Missile Silo
54. Moon Machine
55. Moonshield
56. Mrs. Magic
57. Mrs. Mystic
58. Ms. Mystic
59. Neuroscience
60. Night Sight
61. Opalescent
62. Out-Gun
63. Paleozoic
64. Pendant
65. Quantum Mechanics
66. Quantum Theory
67. Rocket Booster
68. Rot Iron
69. Scaredy-Cat
70. Scarlet Scorpio
71. Sea Giant
72. Septic Shock
73. Shooting Spree
74. Sister Hyde
75. Smoldering
76. Snowplough
77. Space Storm
78. Spacecraft
79. Spade Spider
80. Speedstar
81. Sun Sword
82. Timetracker
83. Transform
84. Waterworks
85. Witchboard

Freed up the name "Red Devil" for anyone who might want it.

Freed up the names "Zodiac" and "Hindenburg" for anyone who might want them.

My apologies if there's already a thread like this somewhere in the Victory Forum but I didn't see one and I thought it was a great idea. I stole it from the Virtue Forum, who started one of their own. It looks like it's been very active over the years. I know good names can be hard to come by nowadays, so I figured we could watch out for one another and/or let our fellow Victory players know if we have one we're going to free up that someone might want.

To start, off the top of my head, I know Bioluminescent was available a few days ago. I have a couple of others "on hold" right now that I'm not sure if I'm going to use. If I don't, I'll post them here.

Oh, and if anyone is interested, the thread I referred to above is here... http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showt...ighlight=Names

Last time names were freed up, below level 6 on 90+ day inactive accounts, I was able to secure quite a few names I had been wanting so I'm not able to identify with those who are stating the names people want would not be freed up. My statement is not an opinion, it is fact based on my own first-hand experience. And for those wondering, I believe the last major name scrub happened in July of 2007 or thereabouts.

There may be a good chance of this happening again at some point. The question came up during Hero Con in the 'Wouldn't It Be Great If..." panel discussion and the question was posed to the audience with a thundering "YES, we would like to see this happen". They also asked us how we felt about tying names to Globals, so that anyone could have any name (multiple toons with the same character name running around on the same server) and that idea received a resounding NO by just about everyone. So, hopefully, they got the message that we would like to see names freed up but at the same time keep names unique on a server.

I agree. Most of the good names are taken at this point. You have to think really hard to come up with something that's not already taken and fits your character's concept. When I want to create a character now, I get the name first and then create/design the character.

I made a safe!

http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a3...mons/Safe1.jpg

http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a3...mons/Safe2.jpg

http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a3...mons/Safe3.jpg

http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a3...mons/Safe4.jpg

I don't know why I'm even bothering to reply to a post from someone who clearly doesn't know what he's talking about but I'm bored right now so I thought I would.

It’s actually you who doesn't know what he’s talking about hedgehog. As a matter of fact, the last time the devs ran their script to release names from inactive accounts, I was able to secure about 50% of the names I had been wanting.

Please do me a favor and if you're going to rebut, do your homework and know the facts before you spout off statements which have no basis. Oh, and learn proper punctuation and capitalization too. That would make reading your rants a little less annoying.

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I think it's time to dust this one off and do another mass dump of names on accounts that no longer have current subscriptions running.

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I think it's time for people to dust off their thesaurus.

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I think it's time for people who don't pay for something to stop expecting it's theirs forever and ever.

Also, I do quite fine with names thank you very much. But I also don't want to feel like I have to come up with 10 alternative names for a character I'm trying to create each and every time. The worst is having to play a character with a name like "Khamel0en" because the proper and correct spelling has been taken by someone who hasn't had an active account in a year or longer.

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How do you know it isnt active? maybe I have that name on a toon I just dont log on? I havent stopped paying in 2 years, so tough luck on that.

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We're talking about inactive accounts, not inactive toons on an active account. Gosh, your "Loc:" really is "State of confusion". Shocking!

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I think it's time to dust this one off and do another mass dump of names on accounts that no longer have current subscriptions running.

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I think it's time for people to dust off their thesaurus.

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I think it's time for people who don't pay for something to stop expecting it's theirs forever and ever.

Also, I do quite fine with names thank you very much. But I also don't want to feel like I have to come up with 10 alternative names for a character I'm trying to create each and every time. The worst is having to play a character with a name like "Khamel0en" because the proper and correct spelling has been taken by someone who hasn't had an active account in a year or longer.

I think it's time to dust this one off and do another mass dump of names on accounts that no longer have current subscriptions running.

WHOOT! A big thanks to the City Scoop! staff for their continued efforts in producing these newsletters. And thank you for spotlighting our SGs :-)

So, I'm part of the camp that feels names should be scrubbed on a regular basis for inactive (non-paying) accounts. Honestly, the sense of entitlement by non-paying customers astounds me. I'm sorry but if you're not paying for a subscription then you take the chance of losing your characters’ names. Period! If that's not a chance that someone is willing to take, then they should leave their account active and just not play.

If the above sounds too extreme, then I could see this being a possible solution and one that the company could make money at. After all, that is the whole point of keeping the names reserved for inactive account… the potential for making more money. Here it is:

As an option upon ending a subscription, the person could pay a fee to keep the names on the account reserved (regardless of what level the characters are or any other attribute). For example, $20 for 6 months, $50 for a year, etc., etc. with the option of extending the timeframe if it expires and they still haven’t returned to the game. That, for instance, would require the customer to log back into their NCSoft account and purchase an extension (more time) to keep the names reserved.

Personally, one of the things I like about the CoX games is that it's a comic book game without being too cheesy. I won't be turning this game feature on. To me, it would detract from the quality of my game-play experience. It's like putting all of those "visual sounds" from the old Batman TV series into the "Heroes" one.

Don't get me wrong, I'm sure there are people out there who will like this. I'm glad the game is trying to be innovative and come up with options that appeal to a wide range of individuals. For me though, this one doesn't work.

And I have to say it... I'm constantly perplexed by introducing new fluff features such as this, when there are things in the game that are broken and need attention in a bad way (e.g. PVP balancing, base items that don't work, the Cathedral of Pain Trial, etc. etc.). Let's focus on the things that people REALLY want and have been asking for and not waste time on stuff like this. Or at least not until everything else that we've been asking for has been fixed or given to us.

I sent them an email and this is what I got...

Subject
Character Name Policy-- Thirty Day Notice!

Discussion Thread
Response (GM Roland) 08/29/2007 04:19 PM
Hello,

Thank you for contacting the PlayNC Support team. This feature is not currently in the game. I apologize for any inconvenience. Please watch for news on updates, or discuss these features on our forums at https://boards.cityofvillains.com. Thanks for your patience.

Take care,
Response (Van) 08/29/2007 04:05 PM
Greetings,

Thank you for contacting PlayNC Support Team. We are escalating your petition to a Senior Customer Support Representative to further assist you. Once we have reviewed your inquiry someone will be in contact with you as soon as possible.

Regards,
GM Van
Customer 08/29/2007 03:27 PM
Is this going live today? I've been checking periodically and it doesn't seem to have been rolled out yet.

Someone speculated in another thread that this might not go live today and that they might wait to do it when they roll out server transfers and the name change policies. It makes sense but I really hope they don't do that, since I took a day off work for the chance to reserve some names I've been after for a while. If it doesn't launch today, that's just wrong. They should have said so