Release Names or Tie to Global
By
Ad Astra,
Posted on: 2009-11-11 12:02 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
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I completely understand what you are saying and what you said before.|
Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
The history of the name purges contradicts this. Names were purged the first time when the limit was 35 and below. LOTS of names. But hardly any of them were actually taken. No-one wanted them. The bulk of the names actually TAKEN, as opposed to just tagged to be freed, were on characters level 6 and below. That's why the purge is targeting that boundary now. It wasn't arbitrarily chosen. That's what the data showed.
Again, let me say this again: there aren't nearly as many "good" names tied up in characters susceptible to purges as people think. That's what all of the purges done so far have shown. |
We could go on (in agreement) to point out this and that (Fallacies and truths) about such names and whatnot...
However, the point still is that there are names out there that some would like and are not being used, but are locked up by never-to-be-used-again trial accounts, inactive accounts and all.
Datamining is nice and all, but that doesn't mean that some of the names that were above level 6 didn't make some players extremely happy.
And about the "Being cut off at level 6 is not so good.":
The datamining stats also don't take into account the continued quicker leveling this game has seen (Don't even think about ignoring the amount of 30-50 level characters banged out of the AE and are now lost on never-to-be-reactivated accounts... And, I know, I'm sure there are plenty of terrible names there, haha).
A lot of name hunters do try contacting the global handles of the name holder.
While not every player is going to bother to respond, many will respond to polite inquiries about the character name in question. Several never hear a thing back. Hey, several current players knew the player of that now-inactive account and can attest to their long inactive status.
There is no way that some names wouldn't be taken from name purges.
Whether or not the total would be enough to make it worth the company's time (And any other possible repercussions) is a subjective matter (For them to decide).
Don't get me wrong... I know a name purge won't bring the Shangri-La of name choices that many players would like.
I do, however, think that there would be some benefit.
@Zethustra
"Now at midnight all the agents and the superhuman crew come out
and round up everyone that knows more than they do"-Dylan
and round up everyone that knows more than they do"-Dylan
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Arcanaville, you are excluding an SOE team from this logical theory, right?|
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
The problem you're handwaving away (displayed names are no longer unambiguous) is a problem I would consider an absolute deal-breaker. I have no problem with the current way CoH implements name space. I don't like, but can tolerate how CO implements name space. What you are suggesting above is something that if either dev team implemented I would publicly call their sanity into question.
In fact, I think that's so bad of an idea that I'm confident even if a dev on either team thought it was a good idea and tried to implement it, the idea would eventually be killed by someone in the loop. Either a designer would veto it, or a publisher would shelve it, or a programmer would conveniently forget to code it. Its that level of bad. |
EDIT: D'oh! I just noticed you said "either team" and not "any team".
Ah well... My eagerness to take a shot at them won out.
@Zethustra
"Now at midnight all the agents and the superhuman crew come out
and round up everyone that knows more than they do"-Dylan
and round up everyone that knows more than they do"-Dylan
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What I described isn't that different from what we have now. I certainly don't memorise every character on a server in relation to who their global is, especially since players might have 8 or more characters to switch between. Shifting to a non-unique naming system means the focus goes to the globalname over the character name, which is where a lot of long-term players are now anyway (using Global Friends over Friends or Global Chat Channels over local chat). |
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
The problem you're handwaving away (displayed names are no longer unambiguous) is a problem I would consider an absolute deal-breaker. I have no problem with the current way CoH implements name space. I don't like, but can tolerate how CO implements name space. What you are suggesting above is something that if either dev team implemented I would publicly call their sanity into question.
In fact, I think that's so bad of an idea that I'm confident even if a dev on either team thought it was a good idea and tried to implement it, the idea would eventually be killed by someone in the loop. Either a designer would veto it, or a publisher would shelve it, or a programmer would conveniently forget to code it. Its that level of bad. |
There are arguments for and against unique naming. If an argument against is ugliness of the full <charname>@<globalname> address, there are ways around that particular format at the top, cosmetic level.
As for "a programmer would conveniently forget to code it": yes, I certainly hope that programmers ignore designers on decisions they feel are wrong and implement their own systems instead. Worked so well for taunt and RNG reward distribution, didn't it? The only person on that list who would have that kind of say would be designers or maybe producers - the vast majority of publishers aren't going to check through every design decision and wouldn't shelve an entire title because of a naming system.
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Such as?|
Originally Posted by UnSub
There are arguments for and against unique naming. If an argument against is ugliness of the full <charname>@<globalname> address, there are ways around that particular format at the top, cosmetic level.
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Say you're on a team with Rocketman and Rocketman. Besides requiring the players to jump through hoops and manually check the global every time Rocketman or Rocketman says something, what solution is there other than tagging their global name onto their local name?
What solution is there to when you type /invite Rocketman and there are three people named Rocketman online?
What are your "ways around" displaying the global name and requiring it for essentially all transactions when the only way to tell two people apart is by their global?
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Originally Posted by PRAF68_EU
Dispari has more than enough credability, and certainly doesn't need to borrow any from you.
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Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
The history of the name purges contradicts this. Names were purged the first time when the limit was 35 and below. LOTS of names. But hardly any of them were actually taken. No-one wanted them. The bulk of the names actually TAKEN, as opposed to just tagged to be freed, were on characters level 6 and below. That's why the purge is targeting that boundary now. It wasn't arbitrarily chosen. That's what the data showed.
Again, let me say this again: there aren't nearly as many "good" names tied up in characters susceptible to purges as people think. That's what all of the purges done so far have shown. |
Well I think they should raise the level to 14 so they can include any character names on trial accounts that are over 6.
I want to be unique. It's that simple for me.
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1) Speech bubbles generally show who says what. A portait of each character on your team could be displayed next to the name. Colour coding of the same names in chat (obviously not green and red!). There are ways. |
Originally Posted by Dispari
Such as?
Say you're on a team with Rocketman and Rocketman. Besides requiring the players to jump through hoops and manually check the global every time Rocketman or Rocketman says something, what solution is there other than tagging their global name onto their local name? What solution is there to when you type /invite Rocketman and there are three people named Rocketman online? What are your "ways around" displaying the global name and requiring it for essentially all transactions when the only way to tell two people apart is by their global? |
2) There can be confirmations to check you are getting the right person - right lvl, right AT, right powersets, whatever. It could also default to prioritise friend lists, or the person you last spoke to with that charname.
I also typically invite people from their globalname now anyway or by rightclicking on chat names or through the LFT system, so individual character name invites where I have to type in the name isn't an issue for me. The same systems can apply whether there are non-unique character names or unique ones.
3) Right now, the only way to tell two people apart IS their global. Characters can change names and people can change characters rapidly - that lvl 50 Scrapper can change into a lvl 42 Controller in the space of 60 seconds, so you track the global name to keep tabs on the player. There are also variations on a theme that run very close - hello to all those people with Boudacea or Dark Angel variations - so that even unique names can end up looking fairly generic.
If everyone had one character slot, you'd have a stronger case. But given that the vast majority of players manages multiple characters anyway and some people play across servers it is harder to say that charnames are intrinsically tied to unique players. Only global names get that distinction.
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I don't think there are any arguments that you are unique. ;-)
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Originally Posted by Westley
I want to be unique. It's that simple for me.
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Most of the classic names that people are looking for are tied up by accounts that were created at launch or soon after most likely. I think that anyone's account that has been inactive for 5 years should lose their toon names regardless of level. At 4 years it should be any toon 35 or lower. Set a tiered system. If people do not want to lose the names of their toons they should keep their account active, plain and simple. When I used to play EQ if an account was inactive for more than 6 months their characters got wiped. This would be less heavy handed and fair to all.
Against allowing multiple characters on the same server from having the same name.
While at first this looks like a great thing, it in reality is a horrible idea.
The flavor of the month name will be running along side the powerset of the month.
Really. Just like search-fu, there is a skill and set configurations that can make it easy to find a name for a character that is unique and fits the feeling that you are going for. There have been posts on this subject many times..probably since Issue 2 if not before.
I can go into the game and pick a name that I would swear would have been taken by now quite easily. I do it from time to time for the sheer fact that it proves all the great names have not been taken.
I do understand that some people find it hard to find a name, and that is why that I will stand behind the idea of a random name generator that takes such things as the characters costume colors and powerset into account when randomly generating names and checking them against the current name list before suggesting them to players.
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Actually, I did create a toon named The Codpiece!|
Originally Posted by BBQ_Pork
Ah, remember that's "Codfish", not "Codpiece"
 Neither honorable, nor noble. |
http://cit.cohtitan.com/character/37819
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Yeah, at some point you have to admit that a customer probably isn't ever going to come back. I know a ton of people who only played to kill time before WoW came out, and now languish forever in the eternal toil of that game. They were "day 0" customers, so they're probably the precise people we're talking about when we grumble about someone hogging Captain ExactlyTheNameYouWanted or whatever.
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Originally Posted by Mr_Zek
Most of the classic names that people are looking for are tied up by accounts that were created at launch or soon after most likely. I think that anyone's account that has been inactive for 5 years should lose their toon names regardless of level. At 4 years it should be any toon 35 or lower. Set a tiered system. If people do not want to lose the names of their toons they should keep their account active, plain and simple. When I used to play EQ if an account was inactive for more than 6 months their characters got wiped. This would be less heavy handed and fair to all.
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@Mindshadow
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None of those make sense. Speech bubbles are only meaningful if you spot who they come from (or even have them on), which isn't always the case in the heat of battle. For the most part, I'm the one who charges ahead, so all the chat comes up behind my back. That, and I can't actually read half the speech bubbles I see, because someone thought black letters on a dark blue background looked so cool.|
Originally Posted by UnSub
1) Speech bubbles generally show who says what. A portait of each character on your team could be displayed next to the name. Colour coding of the same names in chat (obviously not green and red!). There are ways.
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You can't attach a meaningful portrait of a character in the team screen, lest you want to balloon the screen to several times its height. Pics the size of buff icons are too small to make a difference.
Colour-coding the names is always an option... Except it doesn't work. I've had Individual Name Colours turned on for years, and outside of my own name, I can never remember what colour anyone's name is. Global names are a bit easier to remember after a while, but character names are plain impossible. And that's WITH unique naming. Never you mind that unique name colours could, and often do, produce incredibly similar colours, like a whole team of people with names that are different shades of purple. Yeah, great.
The point of having a name at all is so you can tell one person apart from the other, which non-unique names don't help with.
2) There can be confirmations to check you are getting the right person - right lvl, right AT, right powersets, whatever. It could also default to prioritise friend lists, or the person you last spoke to with that charname.[/quote]
In other words, massive complications for those of us who are just fine with unique player names for the sake of getting other people their pet peeve. I have a really hard time imagining how you'd sell that idea. Any time you make a change that affects only a portion of the player base, you really need to ensure it doesn't adversely affect the REST of us. Because nothing sucks more than forcing me to jump through hoops for a benefit I neither wanted nor needed.
3) Right now, the only way to tell two people apart IS their global. Characters can change names and people can change characters rapidly - that lvl 50 Scrapper can change into a lvl 42 Controller in the space of 60 seconds, so you track the global name to keep tabs on the player. There are also variations on a theme that run very close - hello to all those people with Boudacea or Dark Angel variations - so that even unique names can end up looking fairly generic.[/quote]
That assumes we only ever team with friends and that's it. That isn't the case, not even for a recluse like me. Sometimes you're on a team with perfect strangers and you need to tell THEM apart. Is the Awesome Man that just died Awesome Man, the incredibly competent tanker, meaning you should run for your life, or Awesome Man, the incredibly lame Blaster, meaning nobody cares? Or when Awesome Man says "Run!" was it the Tanker who knows you're getting overwhelmed, or the Blaster who rushed ahead, ran into too many enemies and panicked?
Or how about this. I invite Cat Boy to my team while I'm building up for a TF and he will only join if I bring his friend along. "Please invite Cat Girl, too." OK, fine and dandy. /invite Cat Girl. YE GADS am I going to shoot an invite to a million people! Or suppose Cat Boy realises he's too low and wants to switch to his Tanker. "OK, I'll be back in a minute. Please invite Cat Man." How? Do I wait for him to arrive back to the location, possibly crossing the whole game world? Do I ask him to send me a tell? How would he do that? Relogging wipes your chat tabs clean.
Remember, some of us don't like to make Global Friends with every tom, dick and harry we team with, and don't enjoy giving out our globals at the drop of a hat. Yes, other people can find out my global if they REALLY need to, but I'd rather they didn't need to do that. I'd rather I didn't have to communicate with strangers via my global.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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You keep saying that, but haven't suggested one yet. What do you do about players on the same team. Do you list them by character name and guess, or do you list them by global name and also guess (since their characters are going to be displayed by character name, or are you suggesting removing that as well).|
Originally Posted by UnSub
What I described isn't that different from what we have now. I certainly don't memorise every character on a server in relation to who their global is, especially since players might have 8 or more characters to switch between. Shifting to a non-unique naming system means the focus goes to the globalname over the character name, which is where a lot of long-term players are now anyway (using Global Friends over Friends or Global Chat Channels over local chat).
There are arguments for and against unique naming. If an argument against is ugliness of the full <charname>@<globalname> address, there are ways around that particular format at the top, cosmetic level. |
The whole *point* of having character names is to be identified by them. If you're allowing for people to not care what they show up visibly to the rest of the game as, then for people who want non-unique names and are willing to have that name not be the actual identifier for their character, *I* have a suggestion: put random numbers in the character ID field and put your character's "real name" in your bio. Now your character has whatever name you want, and your character ID field is just a placeholder to uniquely identify your character. Problem solved.
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| As for "a programmer would conveniently forget to code it": yes, I certainly hope that programmers ignore designers on decisions they feel are wrong and implement their own systems instead. Worked so well for taunt and RNG reward distribution, didn't it? The only person on that list who would have that kind of say would be designers or maybe producers - the vast majority of publishers aren't going to check through every design decision and wouldn't shelve an entire title because of a naming system. |
Ok, suppose you're BaB and you think this is the greatest idea ever. You can always present that to the rest of the dev team and see if you can advocate getting it implemented. However, there's probably an intermediate producer responsible for systems related to chat or related systems: he would have veto power on the idea. Positron as the lead designer would have veto power. Brian would probably have veto power. Separate from all of them, on a matter as wide-ranging as this there would probably be an internal discussion of the idea, and if a large majority of the devs expressed serious reservations, that would probably also kill the idea, if not delay it substantially. Then you'd have to discuss it with the programming team. While they do not have explicit veto power over the idea, they have a way to express their overall preferences by presenting the opportunity cost of implementation: given their estimates of how long it would take, what else won't get done. And if you think this is always an objective process, you're operating outside the boundaries of reality. If they think the idea sucks badly enough, it'll get implemented next thursday 2021 right after nostril-hair sliders, unless it was made a high priority task which is extraordinarily unlikely.
The dev team is not normally a dictatorship: its a collaboration. There are design decisions made at the top, sure, but most of the time ideas are vetted across the dev team, and usually everyone gets some input into whether something is implemented, and when its implemented how its implemented (if it affects an area of the game they are involved in). Something like changing the way characters are identified is something that I'm pretty sure will pass through lots of hands and is unlikely to be a decision made dictatorially. And that's why I'm pretty sure it would get killed in the crib: its a high risk low payoff move that I doubt anyone would go to the mat to get done, but at least one person involved would expend sufficient energy to kill.
The only way this gets done is if Positron or Brian fall in love with the idea. I don't know either well enough to know if they would fall in love with the idea, but I think they probably have more interesting things on their plate right now.
Oh, and by the way, taunt wasn't implemented "contrary to design" it was the documentation that was out of sync with the implementation (that occurs a lot: player accuracy buffs were another example of implementation being out of sync with either documentation or general knowledge). And the random number generator error in the reward system wasn't the result of a programmer implementing their own priorities, but bad programming period.
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Not really trying to argue a point here, and it's utterly tangental to the thread, but is that really how people run? Is chat used that heavily in making combat decisions? This seems really alien to me; the first I'd know of Awesome Man's death would be the rapidly declining health next to his name (and AT icon), I'd notice that way before anything he said in chat. Similarly I'd pretty much never flee just because someone, anyone, chatted "Run!" - that's a judgement I'd make myself based on the state of the team, which enemies are present, how we've done so far, etc etc. To be honest, I usually don't see what people have been saying until the battle is over.|
Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
That assumes we only ever team with friends and that's it. That isn't the case, not even for a recluse like me. Sometimes you're on a team with perfect strangers and you need to tell THEM apart. Is the Awesome Man that just died Awesome Man, the incredibly competent tanker, meaning you should run for your life, or Awesome Man, the incredibly lame Blaster, meaning nobody cares? Or when Awesome Man says "Run!" was it the Tanker who knows you're getting overwhelmed, or the Blaster who rushed ahead, ran into too many enemies and panicked?
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(re: the final, unquoted paragraph: I'd get Cat Boy to ask Cat Girl to send a tell and use the right click->invite method, while for char swap I'd use the same method I use now: make a mental note of the team leader's name (only *really* remembering the first few letters and the general shape of the name) and level/AT, then after swapping use /search to find them and send a tell letting them know I've swapped chars and am ready for invite; both have somewhat become habit due to all the badly spelled names, excessive symbols, I-vs-L substituting, unreliable narrators, etc)
Here's an idea:
Tie character names to globals.
Instead of tacking "@globalwhatsit" to the character name, have an option (like we already have for SG names) to show the global handle under the character name & title.
Some of you have talked about having dozens or hundreds of the same character name all in one place.
But come on, how common do you really think it will be to run into someone with the same name? I've played games that allowed multiple instances of the same name, and I've only ever run into someone using my chosen name once. Names like "Scarlet Fusion" and "Janissary" are safe, trust me. Lazy names like "Fox" and "Midnight" will be everywhere, but it's not much different from adding punctuation or numbers.
On the griefing concern: there are ways to mimic names as is. People have been caught trying to get others banned by impersonation. Using punctuation, substituting I for L, and other tricks already make this possible. Admittedly, that's how I managed to get one of my character names.
Now, some of you don't like the idea of no longer having a unique name, and that's understandable. You enjoy knowing that nobody else can have what you do.
The problem is that it's not a good reason to not implement the system.
Your global is already unique, and even now most people I interact with (on Virtue) use the handy Note feature to check globals anyway, especially altoholics.
Saying "but it's mine and I don't want to share!" just seems greedy.
Trust me, I understand the feeling of having something unique. But it's a petty justification for demanding everyone else play the "name game" for every new alt.
I'm a roleplayer, and decent names are hard to come by on Virtue. I don't want to play on a different server, or pick an immersion-breaking name like Impetus5467 instead of just Impetus. Obscure references and non-English words don't really help on Virtue, either.
I have literally spent 2 hours coming up with names for a single character, only to have to settle for a "real name" because all 40+ of the others - all fairly creative - were taken.
So, long post short: maybe tie names to globals, but make the global appear as another 'tag' under the name like SG as an option, and stop assuming that we'll see entire teams of people with the exact same name and look.
*prepares for flaming*
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While obviously nobody in this thread has a good handle on exactly what the whole playerbase would prefer on the number issue, if a large number of paying customers were to think that way, then, yes, that, alone, would be sufficient reason not to implement that system.|
Originally Posted by Mask_of_Many
Now, some of you don't like the idea of no longer having a unique name, and that's understandable. You enjoy knowing that nobody else can have what you do.
The problem is that it's not a good reason to not implement the system. |
I'm just sayin'.
I'm sure that NCSoft has a better understanding of wether this is seriously a customer retention/acquisition issue. I assume it's one of the things that comes up in the unsubscribe survey...
@Mindshadow
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This is a nice idea, but only goes as far as staring straight at someone. It doesn't tell you who said what in local, broadcast, team, or in the search window. And doesn't help you distinguish people who you're trying to invite.|
Originally Posted by Mask_of_Many
Here's an idea:
Tie character names to globals. Instead of tacking "@globalwhatsit" to the character name, have an option (like we already have for SG names) to show the global handle under the character name & title. |
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Some of you have talked about having dozens or hundreds of the same character name all in one place. But come on, how common do you really think it will be to run into someone with the same name? I've played games that allowed multiple instances of the same name, and I've only ever run into someone using my chosen name once. Names like "Scarlet Fusion" and "Janissary" are safe, trust me. Lazy names like "Fox" and "Midnight" will be everywhere, but it's not much different from adding punctuation or numbers. |
And to provide an example opposite yours, I've played in a game where when you send a tell to someone you only have to type as much as would be unique to their name. For instance, if I'm "Dispari Scuro" and someone just tries to send a tell to "Dispari," it will go through. If there's another person whose name starts with "Dispari" though, it gives an error and says you need to be more specific. If I'm just trying to invite Midnight, and there are five of them online, how do I know which one I'm trying to get? There's nothing further for me to clarify without knowing their global. And if their global isn't clearly displayed everywhere they can speak and communicate, I have no way of knowing.
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Now, some of you don't like the idea of no longer having a unique name, and that's understandable. You enjoy knowing that nobody else can have what you do. The problem is that it's not a good reason to not implement the system. Your global is already unique, and even now most people I interact with (on Virtue) use the handy Note feature to check globals anyway, especially altoholics. Saying "but it's mine and I don't want to share!" just seems greedy. |
Names are a unique way to identify your characters. To give them an identity and a personality. Some people are lazy and don't care about that, which we can't do anything about. But that doesn't mean the system needs to change as a result.
We have globals because of convenience. In a game where the average player has probably 10 characters or more, it's easy to keep track of someone by using their global. However, for the vast majority of the game, you don't need anyone's global. It's useful to have it, it can save you time, but you don't ever HAVE to have it. If the system changed, you'd HAVE to know global sometimes. To the point that you'd actually have to be able to see it pretty much all the time. There's no way around that.
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Trust me, I understand the feeling of having something unique. But it's a petty justification for demanding everyone else play the "name game" for every new alt. I'm a roleplayer, and decent names are hard to come by on Virtue. I don't want to play on a different server, or pick an immersion-breaking name like Impetus5467 instead of just Impetus. Obscure references and non-English words don't really help on Virtue, either. |
I'll ask, if you're a roleplayer and you care about your name, why would you want to be named something that someone else already has? If there's already an Impetus out there, why do you still want to be Impetus? Insisting on a name despite the fact that it grants you no uniqueness or identity doesn't scream "roleplayer" to me. Why would you want to be a nameless, faceless superhero? If anything, a roleplayer should want a unique name and not to be known by something as basic as "Shadow," of which there would undoubtedly be dozens.
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| *prepares for flaming* |
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Originally Posted by PRAF68_EU
Dispari has more than enough credability, and certainly doesn't need to borrow any from you.
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Characters get hurt into the red and die all the time. I've seen both Tankers and Scrappers spend the majority of their lives in the red, and you're very much there half the time just by virtue of being Dark Armour. That, and if someone dies, their AT icon is replaced by a skull and crossbones, so I can't tell which one of them died. And it's even more funny when they're the same AT. Which Tanker am I buffing now? Joe Random who's tanking Reichsman or Joe Random who's tanking the AV that just got freed? I see in chat "[team] Joe Random: Where the hell are my buffs?!?" Who's that coming from?|
Originally Posted by Biowraith
Not really trying to argue a point here, and it's utterly tangental to the thread, but is that really how people run? Is chat used that heavily in making combat decisions? This seems really alien to me; the first I'd know of Awesome Man's death would be the rapidly declining health next to his name (and AT icon), I'd notice that way before anything he said in chat. Similarly I'd pretty much never flee just because someone, anyone, chatted "Run!" - that's a judgement I'd make myself based on the state of the team, which enemies are present, how we've done so far, etc etc. To be honest, I usually don't see what people have been saying until the battle is over.
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And, yeah, I tend to listen to what people say. If the toughest bugger on the team who never dies even when we wipe says run, I RUN! It's kind of like the old saying. "I'm a bomb technician. If you see me running, try to keep up."
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| (re: the final, unquoted paragraph: I'd get Cat Boy to ask Cat Girl to send a tell and use the right click->invite method, while for char swap I'd use the same method I use now: make a mental note of the team leader's name (only *really* remembering the first few letters and the general shape of the name) and level/AT, then after swapping use /search to find them and send a tell letting them know I've swapped chars and am ready for invite; both have somewhat become habit due to all the badly spelled names, excessive symbols, I-vs-L substituting, unreliable narrators, etc) |
The point of having names is so you can address someone by name without having to describe him. If you have to constantly address people like "Sir Punchalot the Scrapper, not the Tanker" then why bother with names at all? Yeah, people end up with colleagues and classmates with the same name as them all the time, and inevitably the solution is via nicknames between friends. But with strangers? It becomes a vision of Linkara's review of Superman at Earth's End: "You, Hitler! And, er... You... Other Hitler!"
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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http://thesaurus.reference.com/browse/impetus
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Originally Posted by Mask_of_Many
I'm a roleplayer, and decent names are hard to come by on Virtue. I don't want to play on a different server, or pick an immersion-breaking name like Impetus5467 instead of just Impetus. Obscure references and non-English words don't really help on Virtue, either.
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Originally Posted by Nethergoat
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And yet, there are two people on Virtue named Impetus (capital i) and lmpetus (lowercase L). That causes conflicts as well.|
Originally Posted by Dispari
This is a nice idea, but only goes as far as staring straight at someone. It doesn't tell you who said what in local, broadcast, team, or in the search window. And doesn't help you distinguish people who you're trying to invite.
It IS much different. If I see someone named "Midnight" and another person named "M1dn1ght," I can immediately tell them apart. What's more, if I do /invite Midnight, there's absolutely zero chance that I end up getting someone other than who I just tried to invite. If I just invite Midnight, I won't accidentally conflict with M1dn1ght. |
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| And to provide an example opposite yours, I've played in a game where when you send a tell to someone you only have to type as much as would be unique to their name. For instance, if I'm "Dispari Scuro" and someone just tries to send a tell to "Dispari," it will go through. If there's another person whose name starts with "Dispari" though, it gives an error and says you need to be more specific. If I'm just trying to invite Midnight, and there are five of them online, how do I know which one I'm trying to get? There's nothing further for me to clarify without knowing their global. And if their global isn't clearly displayed everywhere they can speak and communicate, I have no way of knowing. |
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As greedy as saying "He was here first, but I still deserve it anyway" ? Names are a unique way to identify your characters. To give them an identity and a personality. Some people are lazy and don't care about that, which we can't do anything about. But that doesn't mean the system needs to change as a result. |
Incidentally, hero names and identities are hardly something that should be seen as unique. Half a dozen Robins, 4 Batmen, 3 Spidermen, literally hundreds of Green Lanterns, and even CoV's Scirocco is noted as being "not the first to wear the mantle."
Even in real life, there are dozens of people in the phonebook with the same name.
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| We have globals because of convenience. In a game where the average player has probably 10 characters or more, it's easy to keep track of someone by using their global. However, for the vast majority of the game, you don't need anyone's global. It's useful to have it, it can save you time, but you don't ever HAVE to have it. If the system changed, you'd HAVE to know global sometimes. To the point that you'd actually have to be able to see it pretty much all the time. There's no way around that. |
Again, seeing multiple instances of the same name isn't going to be as common as you make it out to be, and having the global visible as small, hideable text under the name is much more aesthetically pleasing than slapping it on the end.
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I'm a roleplayer too, and I don't have to do this. I play exclusively on Virtue. I get around this by not picking weak and generic names. I'll ask, if you're a roleplayer and you care about your name, why would you want to be named something that someone else already has? If there's already an Impetus out there, why do you still want to be Impetus? Insisting on a name despite the fact that it grants you no uniqueness or identity doesn't scream "roleplayer" to me. Why would you want to be a nameless, faceless superhero? If anything, a roleplayer should want a unique name and not to be known by something as basic as "Shadow," of which there would undoubtedly be dozens. |
Yet again, I mention the fact that there are dozens of superheroes in any comic book universe bearing the same name, and often the same costume. It happens in CoH canon. It does not break immersion or defy the genre to do so here. In fact, it's a fairly popular gimmick in superhero history. Blue Beetle, Batgirl, Spawn, Flash...
Besides, if you pick names that are so unique instead of weak and generic, nobody will have yours anyway.
I'm not even terribly concerned about it. If things stay the same, I lose nothing and it's a minor nuisance. If this idea were implemented, you might - though it's not certain - lose the feeling of being unique on the server, and it's a minor nuisance.
Either way, I'm willing to bet it's pretty low on the devs' list of priorities, and I'm too busy enjoying the game to bother worrying about it unless they specifically mention it.
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Hmm...in cases of dupe names, perhaps list them as Character (SG Name). You'd still need a solution for dupes that aren't in Supergroups and would have to limit to one name per SG though.
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Originally Posted by Mask_of_Many
Here's an idea:
Tie character names to globals. Instead of tacking "@globalwhatsit" to the character name, have an option (like we already have for SG names) to show the global handle under the character name & title. |
Suggestions:
Super Packs Done Right
Influence Sink: IO Level Mod/Recrafting
Random Merit Rolls: Scale cost by Toon Level
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All synonyms were taken, as were any variations that fit the character theme. I checked.|
Originally Posted by Chad Gulzow-Man
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Thesaurus.com and Dictionary.com are the first sites I look to when choosing a hero name.
Thanks, though.
Being cut off at level 6 is not so good.
Again, let me say this again: there aren't nearly as many "good" names tied up in characters susceptible to purges as people think. That's what all of the purges done so far have shown.