Character Name Policy -- Thirty Day Notice!
By
0zymandous,
Posted on: 2007-07-31 15:59 in News, Events and Announcement Discussion
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OK, I'm kinda dense today, but please bear with me. Say you have an active account, you play at least once a week, but you've got characters spread out over all the servers. Now say one of your characters has not been played for more than 90 days. Since your overall account is active, you don't need to worry about that unplayed character losing it's name? Or do you?
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No, you don't need to log in to the character every 90 days as long as the whole account is active.
Only if your entire account is inactive for 90 days will characters below level 6 be switched to unreserved. The character's name will not actually change unless someone else takes the name.
All I can say is, it's about time they re-instituted this. Names are getting really scarce.
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Can we get red name confirmation on this? My accounts are always active but not all of my characters are, yes even below level 6 on various servers.
Thanks.
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This policy only applies to accounts that have currently been inactive for 90 days. You don't need to worry about your low level characters if you account stays in billing activity, or if you cancel and resubscribe within a ninety day period.
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Why lvl 6?
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Okay, time to ask an incredibly stupid question. I had a name for one of my characters, then stopped playing for about a year due to various reasons. Came back, and had to get a new name. If this frees up my old name (assuming it does), how would I go get it back?
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You would purchase a rename token, or credit and apply it to your account. When you do this you may then try to capture the name you lost supposing it is available.
Ex
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Names for characters below level 6 on game retail accounts that have been
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o.o;; lvl 6? the previous lvls where to high, but 6 is to low, you can do lvl 6 in a hourish for hero side with the sewers. maybe below lvl 10 or 14 instead?
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Lvl 35 was idiotic before. The non-powerlevelers may not get that, but 6 I can live with.
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Yeah, level 35 was pretty high, but 6 just seems way too low. I would say around level 15~20 would probably be the most reasonable. 
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OK, I'm kinda dense today, but please bear with me. Say you have an active account, you play at least once a week, but you've got characters spread out over all the servers. Now say one of your characters has not been played for more than 90 days. Since your overall account is active, you don't need to worry about that unplayed character losing it's name? Or do you?
[/ QUOTE ]
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No, you don't need to log in to the character every 90 days as long as the whole account is active.
Only if your entire account is inactive for 90 days will characters below level 6 be switched to unreserved. The character's name will not actually change unless someone else takes the name.
All I can say is, it's about time they re-instituted this. Names are getting really scarce.
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Can we get red name confirmation on this? My accounts are always active but not all of my characters are, yes even below level 6 on various servers.
Thanks.
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This policy only applies to accounts that have currently been inactive for 90 days. You don't need to worry about your low level characters if you account stays in billing activity, or if you cancel and resubscribe within a ninety day period.
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Why lvl 6?
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Level 5 and below is affected because it is the least intrusive to our player base but nets the greatest number of names.
Trial accounts are in a different pool altogether. We can free up names from trial accounts whenever we want without recourse because they were never paid for accounts.
These are only accounts that have been or are presently subscribed to City of Heroes/City of Villains and we realize that people come and go to our population. So we wanted to present a service without affecting our player base who for one reason or another is not currently subscribed.
The number of names that will be freed up will be substantial, if we need to adjust this policy we can do so as long as we grant 30 days notice. So if it is deemed at a later date that more names need to be made available we can do that.
Ex
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Admittedly, if I was picking a number out of my butt, I would have gone with level 20. High enough to encompass some real mass of characters, low enough to be a reasonably easy hurdle to get to.
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I also agree with 20. I think that's around when the emotional attachment starts to kick in.
So does this mean I get to sign LadyK's butt? 
Well, they have to keep an eye on future revenue. One of the best sources of "new" subscribers is old subscribers reactivating their accounts.
The last thing they want to do is to send out a two-week free reactivation for Issue 15 and have everyone who comes back get mad because they lost their names, and not resubscribe.
I'm sure they've got a pretty good idea (maybe an exact count) of how many names they'll free up with this.
Virtue:
Rockburner, Fire/Stone Tanker (50)
Doc Disaster, Earth/Storm Controller (44)
Icewall, Inv/Ice Tanker (42)
Wings, MA/Inv Scrapper (42)
Shockblast, Elec/Elec Blaster (36)
..and many others.
So, out of curiosity, how might this affect characters on your Sever friends list or in your super group. Do they go away?
Much as I've argued that bringing this policy back wasn't needed, at all, to get free names, I have no problem with this version of it.
Because honestly, any character below level six on an account inactive for 90days or more is probably not cared about much by the owner in the majority of cases.
Heroes
Dysmal
Lumynous
Sam Steele
Pluck
Wile
Slagheap
Pressure Wave
Rhiannon Bel
Verified
Stellaric
Syd Mallorn
Villains
Jotunheim Skald
Saer Maen
Jen Corbae
Illuminance
Venator Arawn
Taiga Dryad
Tarranos
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I also agree with 20. I think that's around when the emotional attachment starts to kick in.
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I dunno about you, but my emotional attachment kicks in as my mouse pointer hovers over the game executable icon....
Dang, this means I have to activate my 3 other accounts that I am saving names on, just to make sure they arent free'd up for someone else to use?
3 active accts x $15.00 = $45.00
3 inactive name saving accts x $15.00 = $45.00
$45.00 + $45.00 = $90.00 for month of August!!!
Dang, Dev's making me go broke!!!
Will be intresting to see what the Lvl 6 name change policy will free up. Last time I netted some pretty good names.
Zombie
Fungus
Flesh
Strider
Bear
Sun Fire
Icicle
Lone Wolf
Annihilator
Destructor
I really do not have any slots on the servers I play on to even put new names, but its nice trying to find, and hopefully getting one you thought was out of reach.
Nice job, Devs! This seems like a very fair system, assuming it frees up enough names, and I assume it will. I wouldn't have a problem if it was level 20, but if this does the trick while preserving characters for folks who decide to come back, that's fine with me.
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Thanks for the explanation Ex.
personally I think 6 feels a little low, but Im data driven, and it sounds like you folks have done the homework.
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@Mr Falkland Islands"A Nation Goes Rogue" Arc# 2369 "Toasters and Pop Tarts" Arc#116617
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Much as I've argued that bringing this policy back wasn't needed,
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And as you may recall, I was often right there with you arguing it wasn't needed... at the time. However because of the implementation of the character transfer and rename system there's a demonstrable "need" being generated by the fact that these people will be paying for a service, and should expect the maximum chance at satisfaction (defined as getting the character with the name they want on the server they want, if possible).
So yeah, I'm pleased as punch to see this.
Ex Libris, that was a great follow up answer above. Learning that trials are in a different pool puts a new spin on things. Is it possible or likely that those names will be made unreserved as well? If you made it clear that was happening, it could save a lot of potential complaints when the service goes live.
"Null is as much an argument "for removing the cottage rule" as the moon being round is for buying tennis shoes." -Memphis Bill
Sweet Transfer soon!!
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Dang, this means I have to activate my 3 other accounts that I am saving names on, just to make sure they arent free'd up for someone else to use?
3 active accts x $15.00 = $45.00
3 inactive name saving accts x $15.00 = $45.00
$45.00 + $45.00 = $90.00 for month of August!!!
Dang, Dev's making me go broke!!!
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So, you think you should be able to reserve 36 names per server for free indefinitely keeping others from using them?
And if you ever wanted to use one of the reserved names, wouldn't you have to pay $15 for that privilege since you have to activate a holding account, delete that character, and then create it on one of your live accounts?
Sorry to say, but it seems both selfish and not that clever at the same time. 
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No matter what the level they chose, people would complain - so they are obviously choosing the number they feel the fewest will complain about. Freeing up many names, but 'offending' as few possible Returnees as they can.
My memory's not as sharp as it used to be.
Also, my memory's not as sharp as it used to be.
"The tip of a shoelace is called an aglet, its true purpose is sinister." The Question
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Dang, this means I have to activate my 3 other accounts that I am saving names on, just to make sure they arent free'd up for someone else to use?
3 active accts x $15.00 = $45.00
3 inactive name saving accts x $15.00 = $45.00
$45.00 + $45.00 = $90.00 for month of August!!!
Dang, Dev's making me go broke!!!
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11 US servers x 12 character slots per server x 3 accounts = 396 names.
That is almost 400 names that you're squatting, not counting your active accounts. Why in the world do you need to reserve four hundred names? If you're not going to use those names, give them up to someone who will.
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Arc #48845 - Operation: Dirty Snowball
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Dang, this means I have to activate my 3 other accounts that I am saving names on, just to make sure they arent free'd up for someone else to use?
3 active accts x $15.00 = $45.00
3 inactive name saving accts x $15.00 = $45.00
$45.00 + $45.00 = $90.00 for month of August!!!
Dang, Dev's making me go broke!!!
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11 US servers x 12 character slots per server x 3 accounts = 396 names.
That is almost 400 names that you're squatting, not counting your active accounts. Why in the world do you need to reserve four hundred names? If you're not going to use those names, give them up to someone who will.
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I know sarcasm isn't conveyed well through text, but I believe the person you're quoting was being sarcastic, trying to voice some sort of complaint against this pretty mellow measure.
At least, I'd hope so.
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Steel Canyon, Virtue
Exalted
@Paladin
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so does this mean the earliest we can hope for server transfers to go live is August 30th?
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No this only means we had announced previously that we would give 30 days notice if we were ever to re-enact the policy.
The character transfers and character renames are not tied to this policy, and it will go live when it is ready whether before or after August 29th.
Ex
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Thanks for clearing that up for me. I'm very excited and anxioius for the server transfers but of course I want the bugs to be worked out first. I just hope it happens sooner rather than later. 
I'm glad this is being done as well, but I also wish the levels being affected was around 20+, becuase I have the sinking suspicion that the name I want is 'owned/squatted' by someone who made the high teens at least.
Weak, barely any names will be freed, at least not any good ones. How hard is it to get to 6?! That is rediculous, why even bring it back?
[Virtue Name Watch]
I'm pretty sure no one on infinity names their toon 1-800.... besides so I'm safe
Okay, time to ask an incredibly stupid question. I had a name for one of my characters, then stopped playing for about a year due to various reasons. Came back, and had to get a new name. If this frees up my old name (assuming it does), how would I go get it back?