Discussion: Configuring Your In-Game Web Options

You know, not to be the proverbial mess in the punch bowl, but at least you even get the option to hide your stats.

WoW's Armory doesn't have an opt-out, after all. (Yes, people whined about that just as much. They also forgot about it as soon as the next patch notes gave them something new to whine about :P)

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You know, not to be the proverbial mess in the punch bowl, but at least you even get the option to hide your stats.

WoW's Armory doesn't have an opt-out, after all. (Yes, people whined about that just as much. They also forgot about it as soon as the next patch notes gave them something new to whine about :P)

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AAh HAHHAHAHAHAAAH! YES! IN YOUR FACES!

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So if the default setting is off then something like 80% - 90% of the characters won't ever show up on the site. What would be the point behind even having the site to begin with?

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If the only way for this theoretical site to work is to "trick" people into participating, then maybe it's not worth doing in the first place? If it turns out to be some super-awesome thing that adds value to the game, then people will want to take part. The various third-party sites that track badges and such don't seem to have any problem getting people to sign up.

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Stop worrying! They devs haven't even told us what will be on there or not, just a general sections!

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That's why I AM worried. If I knew exactly what the content and function of this site will be, then I could make an informed decision about whether to participate. Since they're being kind of vague about it, I'm going to err on the side of caution. Chances are, there will be no problems. But I'm not going to sign up for something before I know what it is I'm agreeing to.

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Take what you're given people and be happy such a service was made. This is one of the few MMORPGs where the devs care more about the players than the game.

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I know the devs aren't doing anything deliberately underhanded or malicious. But things can have unforseen consequences, exploits, and so on. So I'd rather wait and see before I dive in. After all, if everything the devs did was perfect, we wouldn't have beta testing and patches, would we?

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Who cares who's on your friend list, if you have something to hide on a video game, you need to find another pastime!

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If some doofus decides they have a grudge against me, I don't want them to be able to grab a list of my friends and start harrassing them too (and vice-versa). Simple as that.

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The various third-party sites that track badges and such don't seem to have any problem getting people to sign up.

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I think I've heard of one or two, but I don't know where they are or what they do. This is mainly due to lack of interest on my part. I'm sure I've seen links here and there every long now and then.

All my characters are hidden from the new web pages now, so I'm ready for it to go live! I'm very interested in seeing what they look like.

JKevinCarrier:

VALID, VERY VALID points!

I'm a big believer that most people look at a situation like it's a square. 2D, four-points and only one face.

I usually like to pride myself on that I handle situations as if they were a cube... 6 faces, multiple answers/outcomes for one situation.

I hate to admit it, but I failed to do so in the response you quoted; for that I apologize.



All of your quotes replies make very much sense. This is a new feature and like most new features; debates, arguments... sometimes even digital bloodshed might entail;D.

It puts a smile on my face to know such intelligent people do exist, this topic has done nothing but prove it. I feel that you're more right than I am now, only because you put into perspective.

Regardless, I believe everyone's wishes will be granted after the devs read this. I seriously doubt they will let such obvious personal information be exploited.

I'm also positive that if someone is harassing you in any context, in real life or in a game... it is a lawsuit waiting to happen. And players of this game should be reminded of that. And even though NCSoft might be less lawsuit intensive than its players; it will not stop the moderators from taking actions they see fit. They would most likely ban that person from the game or something of a noticeable disciplinary action.

I understand avoiding the drama is in all of our scopes, but sometimes; causing enough for it to get noticed and fixed by 'the powers that be'... is a little more effective.

I love this new feature there is no doubt about it... it will make SG info tracking such much easier, and just a general overhaul on hero information altogether.

Fact is, this does have its potential information leaks that need to be addressed.

Please, a dev, clean this up... specifically someone that knows what's going on with this feature!

Hey, JKevinCarrier, did you know you can completely opt out of the system before it goes live?

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Hey, JKevinCarrier, did you know you can completely opt out of the system before it goes live?

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Yup. And I've done so. Once the site goes live, and we can all see what it's actually doing, I may well decide to participate. Until then, better safe than sorry.

I, too, have seen that Web page line among the options for years and wished something would come of it. I love the idea.

I wonder if there will be visibility setting on the Web site itself, so you could restrict some information that way. That is, you could set your pages, or specific kinds of info on your pages, to be visible to all, visible to registered players or visible to registered players in your SG.

Basically, I think, if you can't hide it in-game, then it should be on by default. And those things, such as character names, character images, powers, levels and badges should go up by default, because as people said, very few people would use it if it weren't that way.

Although I can see the problems with a few items, I really do not understand the massive "privacy" concerns among a few people. As someone else said, I have to wonder what these people are hiding. Clone characters? Obscene bios? Bad grammar? Bad taste? I don't get it. I just don't. I think maybe some people consider themselves w-a-a-a-y more interesting or important than they actually are. Chances are, most of the pages won't get seen by anybody other than the owner. Of course, some people would probably like to be able to sue people for looking at them when passing on the street -- so what are you gonna do?

Anyway, if someone can steal your identity by using the web because they have your global (as someone suggested), then you already have a problem, and it has nothing to do with CoH.

However, global names are one of the few things I think should be off by default. People should have at least a chance at escaping annoyances by switching characters.

Friends lists really shouldn't be up there unless a person wants them there, either. I use mine for people I want to avoid almost more than for people I want to team with again. I'm not popular enough to be worried that people would feel offended by not being on my list, but I can understand wanting to avoid that kind of drama also.

I actually think that posting the names of all characters that have been active within 89 days would not increase anybody's spam, because they'd be using all those thousands of names instead of just the ones they've collected. Of course, I don't get the spam paranoia either -- so you get some tells or e-mails. I've gotten them too, and I don't recall them hurting me in any way. I report them, and that does take a minute, but if I were bothered by using the time, I'd just stop doing it.

Statistical information on 50s or what level people stop playing characters, which someone mentioned, would be great, but I'm not sure they'd want to put that out there. It could be something they consider proprietary, or just something they don't want players throwing around and arguing about when it comes to nerfs and buffs.

Ok first thing - Someone needs to give photobucket a call or email - "bandwidth exceeded" pic is all i'm seeing from the link on the launcher.


Second thing - I'm thinking it would be better to have the Default set to Off & let people "opt in" rather than having to opt-out.

I'm gonna presume that this is per character as well, that could potentially be a Really Big Hassle for Altaholics that don't want all their info displayed.

Having a way to turn these Options ON or OFF for an entire Account would be great - idk if that's doable or not?

Then player could go in and turn these Options Off or On for characters that are your "exceptions to the rule/default" would be MUCH more player friendly, IMO.

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Originally Posted by Arcanaville City of Heroes didn't fail, City of Heroes was killed. If a 747 dropped on your house, you'd say you were killed, not you failed to find a safer dwelling.

After reading all the posts here there seems to be a pretty even divide between those who think the default should be on or off (and pretty much everyone agrees friends lists should be off by default, and for many others that want all off by default the big concern seems to be with the friends list).

I won't restate all my views since I already put one very long post in here with details of how I wish the site and options worked and their default settings.

What I wonder at this point though is if there would be this much discussion and concern about the web feature if it was in at launch. As someone pointed out there was a similiar discussion on the WoW forums when they added the armory. I don't recall hearing about anything similar with EQ2players, which was in at or shortly after game launch (I wasn't there at launch but came in shortly after) but do seem to recall it was planned as part of the game experience from the start (and was very buggy at first but lately has gotten better).

The biggest concern at this point seems to be with the friends list and exactly what will show on the site. I'm suspecting they may put up a preview of the site before it goes live so people can see what it will be like and make any changes to settings they want before it goes fully live. I also suspect they did this announcement well in advance of the feature to give people time to make changes to their settings and to provide feedback about concerns and feature suggestions.

I really like the idea of having are Heroes / Villains up for the world to see a lot of work goes in to the creation, however I do see the problem PvP side were having your specs displayed could be bad but that the awesomeness of this, you can simply opt out and no one can see. personally I can think of a few of mine ill opt out but the rest like my main will be up for view I REALY HOPE there descriptions and bio’s are up as well I spend a lot of time tweaking them

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The default setting needs to be on.

90% of the players DO NOT read the forums and thus have no idea what's going on here. Many of that 90% don't bother to read the MotD either.

So if the default setting is off then something like 80% - 90% of the characters won't ever show up on the site. What would be the point behind even having the site to begin with?

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I think we can safely assume that people that know about the web site will know about the options to enable their characters to be visible. At the very least, they will ask questions about how to do such a thing.

Thus, if 80% - 90% of the characters don't ever show up, then that means either most people don't know the site exists or most people don't want their information seen. If most people don't want their information seen, then NCSoft should honor their wishes by not showing that information. And if most people don't know the site exists, then that makes it even less useful than not having 80% - 90% of the characters not showing up. So I would imagine NCSoft would spend a lot of effort to promote such a site, and thus make people aware of the options to make their characters visible on it.

Nonetheless, even if only 10% - 20% of the player population utilized the site, the characters that they would care about seeing would be their and their friends' characters. And given that those that used the site would likely communicate to their friends about it, I would highly doubt they would miss the 80% - 90% of the characters that didn't show up.

So the default should be off because those that don't know about the site might not know their information was made public. However, those that know about the site will at least be aware that the options exist, if not know exactly how to enable them.

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No, it is more likely that 75% won't care if their character info is displayed or not. (Had to bold character since the way some are reacting you'd think this site will display social security numbers or something).

It will be a much more useful and interesting tool if those 75% are displayed rather than not. The 10% that really really want to be hidden can change their setting. Once again, friend list is hidden by default anyway.

It'd almost be like arguing that everyone should be defaulted to /hide inside the game by default as well. I'm sure some would like that and find typing in /hide everytime they make a new character is such a burden.

I kinda dont get this... So by enabling everything, your information(does global name and global friendlist count? or just character name and character friendlist?) people will be able to look at ur stats and stuff online, as in on a website?

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No, it is more likely that 75% won't care if their character info is displayed or not. (Had to bold character since the way some are reacting you'd think this site will display social security numbers or something).

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It seems to me that an awful lot of people don't want their global information available.

Which is pretty easy, since nothing in Lighthouse's posts indicate global information would be available, just per-character information.

I'm still trying to figure out how having other people having basic character information can possibly be be damaging to the player.

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No, it is more likely that 75% won't care if their character info is displayed or not.

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And if people don't even care about their own characters, why would anybody else? Is there really that much use for the site other than for accessing information on your own or your friends' characters? Would people really be that disappointed that they couldn't view information about a bunch of random strangers' characters, even if those characters made up 75% of all those in existence?

The usefulness of the site will be in what percentage of characters that each user cares about is available for viewing, not the percentage of all characters. It doesn't matter if 50%, 75%, or 99% of all characters are hidden. All players that want to view their own characters will make their own characters visible. And if they want to see their friends' characters, they will ask their friends to make them visible. So, assuming all parties are willing, any information that users of the site care about seeing will be seen.

There's also the people who will want to check out the members of an SG/VG before they join it, the people who maybe saw someone cool looking at some point and want to see more about that character without pestering them in-game, people who just want to browse through certain ATs, servers, or just random chars to see what other people have thought up/done with the game. There'll be people who aren't playing CoH/CoV yet who might want to check out existing characters to get an idea of what can be done with the game. There's more than just the people who want access to their own/their friends characters. Just because someone themselves doesn't care about the site doesn't mean there's not others out there who might find that person's characters interesting enough to check out.

For people just browsing, it's not going to make too much difference whether there are 2000 or 200000 characters; most people aren't going to browse through that many anyway. For people that want to check out members of an SG or view a character they saw in passing, yes, I do see how having all character data could be useful. However, I don't think those uses are so useful that the success of the site hinges on them being available.

I see the primary purpose of the site being, as ChaseArcanum mentioned, a "herospace" (or "villainspace"). People will use it as a means to share their character information via the Web. Who knows, we might even get extra features like being able to write stories for our characters for those of us who want to do more than just the short character background currently available. While it will be useful as a site to lookup random characters, I see it being used more often in a much more personal fashion. So while not having all character data available by default might make the character selection initially small, I think as players start using it more for their personal reasons, that selection will continue to grow.

Sure, some characters you still won't be able to see. But not everybody has a myspace account either. However, that doesn't make the myspace accounts that do exist any less useful, nor will that be the case of the accounts for the people who want their characters seen.

That being said, if there's a global option available to make all characters of an account visible or hidden, then that would greatly reduce the issue I have with forcing people to make an effort *not* to automatically be a part of something. While I would still prefer the default to be hidden, if the devs truly believe that nobody would use the site unless the default was for all characters to be available, then having easy and visible options to make one's characters hidden would greatly soften the blow for those that would need to deal with it. Perhaps the "Hide Statistics from Web Page" option could also be available on the character selection screen as checkboxes next to each character, with one additional checkbox for setting a global option to hide all characters (across all servers). If a player wanted to set more specific web settings, only then would he or she need to log in the character to do the configuration.

In addition, all characters of inactive accounts at the time this feature goes live should have their settings set to "hidden" by default regardless of whether or not the 90-day rule applies. While I do see some use, however small, for looking up the active characters of random strangers, nobody is going to run into a character of an inactive account in the game and want to look it up. And there will likely be plenty of active characters for those just randomly browsing through the site.

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Just in case i missed a dev post or interview in the last week, was there a good explanation as to why these settings are managed on the game client, aside from the options already being there, instead of in the upcoming webpage?

If they just make it so you have to log in using your account credentials, like you do when using the character copy tool, then by default you can only see your own characters on that account. From there you can individually flag each character to "public" that you want to show off.

So by default everyone will still be using the new feature but remain private until they choose to change it.

If this new website turns out to be CoX's version of myspace then i definitely only want it to list characters that are active with spruced up bios/pics or whatever. If every character is public by default then there's going to a ton of bios listed with "aaaaaaaqqqqqq" and such...you know you've seen those.

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if this is going to be something that reflects our stats on the website, I am against something like this as it just gives the RMT spammers something to work with especially if it is a friends list. I would feel horrible to subject friends to that spamming because I didnt click an option. If it strictly an in game thing then make the friends list non-viewable by default.

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We don't believe this will make it any easier for spammers to reach you.

Additionally, we are aware of the situation with in-game email spam and working to address the problem in a future version of the game.

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As much as I hate to say it, really the best way to do so is to do what EQII and World of Warcraft have done. Don't allow tells or emails to people that do not have you on their friend list. While I can from my trial on EQII say it's annoying as hell if you don't know anyone, having been on both sides, I can say I'd prefer to not have tells/email on my trial than have to deal with the RMT crap on my paid account.

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I kinda dont get this... So by enabling everything, your information(does global name and global friendlist count? or just character name and character friendlist?) people will be able to look at ur stats and stuff online, as in on a website?

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Yes, EQII and WoW already have similar features, not sure if it's "proper" to give you actual links on the CoH forums, but if you PM me I can give you the URL, or if Lighthouse will give me permission to post a link to my characters website for example purposes.

This may have already been answered but when is this feature slated to go live. Issue 11 or at a later date? The main post by lighthouse just said in the near future.

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if this is going to be something that reflects our stats on the website, I am against something like this as it just gives the RMT spammers something to work with especially if it is a friends list. I would feel horrible to subject friends to that spamming because I didnt click an option. If it strictly an in game thing then make the friends list non-viewable by default.

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We don't believe this will make it any easier for spammers to reach you.

Additionally, we are aware of the situation with in-game email spam and working to address the problem in a future version of the game.

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As much as I hate to say it, really the best way to do so is to do what EQII and World of Warcraft have done. Don't allow tells or emails to people that do not have you on their friend list. While I can from my trial on EQII say it's annoying as hell if you don't know anyone, having been on both sides, I can say I'd prefer to not have tells/email on my trial than have to deal with the RMT crap on my paid account.

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The tell limit in EQ2 must be tied to the trial accounts. I get tells and can send tells to people not on my friends/their friends list. One thing EQ2 also has done withi the past few months is split the mail up to have a spam tab to filter out possible spam but still let you check it along with a 'report spam' button for stuff that gets through the filter.

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Hey, JKevinCarrier, did you know you can completely opt out of the system before it goes live?

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Hey, Creole, did you know osme people have dozens, or even SCORES, of characters ... and to opt out "completely", you have to log into each and every single one?

That's my complaint: no account-wide "set all my characters to 'Not shown', thanks" option. And I consider it a flaw in the plan, even though MOST of my characters will display MOST details happily and unreservedly.

Yeah, I know, but no one forces a player to create and play dozens or scores of characters. Is it an inconvenience to have to log in each character individually to opt out? Yep. It's the same when you want each character to get one of the log-in (ie. anniversary) badges, too.

I've already agreed that a global opt-out option on the web page would be nice, it just seems a number of people are making posts as if there is *no* way to opt out of the system.

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Hey, JKevinCarrier, did you know you can completely opt out of the system before it goes live?

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Hey, Creole, did you know osme people have dozens, or even SCORES, of characters ... and to opt out "completely", you have to log into each and every single one?

That's my complaint: no account-wide "set all my characters to 'Not shown', thanks" option. And I consider it a flaw in the plan, even though MOST of my characters will display MOST details happily and unreservedly.

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Hi Pax Arcana,

Yes, we hear you and have passed on the desire for some global settings. However, keep in mind that if you have an alt and haven't logged into it in over 90 days, it won't be showing up anyway until you do log into it. So, you only need to be concerned with characters you have logged into in the last 3 months.

Hopefully that will reduce the amount of logging in people have to do. Thanks for your understanding with the system as it currently is. We're very excited to reveal soon the full nature of how these in game settings and their corresponding data will be used.