Release Names or Tie to Global
For me, nothing breaks immersion more than not being able to name your character what you desire. Imagine playing an RPG with a DM who will only let you keep your name if you rolled a 20 on a d20 roll. How long would you stay with that GM? Sticking with an archaic software limitation seems just as arbitrary, even if the limitation served a purpose at one point.
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They did something similar twice in the past, found that fewer names than they expected were freed up. |
The Champions setup of charname@accountname was ugly, though, even though it let you be Superbob@Bob and Superbob@Bobby. Don't know if they ever put in an option to mask that stuff after launch.
Didn't they set the level cutoff really low, though? I thought it was something like if you're under level 5...if you just ran through a Sewer team at level 1 instead of only creating it to namesit you would've been over that bar.
The Champions setup of charname@accountname was ugly, though, even though it let you be Superbob@Bob and Superbob@Bobby. Don't know if they ever put in an option to mask that stuff after launch. |
*looks at the thread*
*looks at the server merge thread*
....
*laughs*
Perhaps I'm uncreative. |
EDIT: Also remember that you can also check available names BEFORE you make a character too.
@Texarkana
@Thexder
FWIW:
- I *despise* the idea of being Memphis Bill@global. And I'd find seeing my global behind the character it came from to look just horrid. (IOW, "global@global.")
- I'm reasonably sure the spammer accounts are flat-out nuked, given all the "Empty" in them. Only time outside of spammers I've seen that is when I had email from someone who deleted the character it came from. And while most of those names are gibberish, there are a few - potentially hijacked accounts, but still - that have "character" names.
- There are two ways I'd be fine with nuking names. One, trials that haven't converted to full accounts after, say, 90 days. This should, of course, be fully disclosed when making the trial account. The other would be for inactive accounts - have an option on the account page to "Release name lock" or something similar, and make reference to it in the reactivation weekend emails. (There should also be an option to just "Delete account and all characters" on the same page.) Put that option to go farther in the hands of the customer (or former customer.)
They did something similar twice in the past, found that fewer names than they expected were freed up.
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See there are two fundamental facts at work here that make simply "freeing up names" something that doesn't work as well as the nominatively challenged hope it would:
1) they'll never take names away from high level characters, even on accounts that haven't been active a long time
2) There really isn't a magical pool of really awesome names stuck on unplayed lowbies across all servers.
"Null is as much an argument "for removing the cottage rule" as the moon being round is for buying tennis shoes." -Memphis Bill
I'm a little surprised at how many folks don't like the idea of tying character names to globals, seems like a fair and equitable solution. Whether it'll happen or not, guess it depends on how Paragon looks at CoH from a big-picture standpoint.
If their focus is upon retention of the existing playerbase they'll probably leave unique names in, might irk too many players when someone who has been using the oh-so-unique "Hyperman" for years suddenly finds other Hypermen running around. If they shift focus to gaining a new audience (which we might see with a big GR push) then something will probably need to be done to make the simpler names available to newcomers.
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Umber's Hall of Heroes & Villains
I'm a little surprised at how many folks don't like the idea of tying character names to globals, seems like a fair and equitable solution. Whether it'll happen or not, guess it depends on how Paragon looks at CoH from a big-picture standpoint.
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Also, thank you for implying that the devs would have to be short-sighted or stupid not to implement this; after all, when has being polite ever gotten anyone anywhere?
My characters - all on Virtue.
Gabe's Internet [censored] Theory
RMT spammers WILL steal your credit card.
I'm a little surprised at how many folks don't like the idea of tying character names to globals, seems like a fair and equitable solution. Whether it'll happen or not, guess it depends on how Paragon looks at CoH from a big-picture standpoint.
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Tying names to globals is aesthetically ugly.
Tying names to globals creates another barrier to being sure you've found the person you wanted. Added time, added hassle.
Tying names to globals opens up a big can of worms wrt players potentially griefing other players.
"Null is as much an argument "for removing the cottage rule" as the moon being round is for buying tennis shoes." -Memphis Bill
It never ceases to amuse me how "Primal" is taken on every server I've checked. The one on Triumph is mine, the rest someone (or several) with equally-exquisite taste, no doubt.
Really, it's gotten pretty difficult to come up with a character name that doesn't use leetspeak like C3lesti@l, or throw random letters and / or numbers in like Celestial A 3, or use a foreign language like Latin. Perhaps I'm uncreative.
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Practically all of the English language is based on, or stolen from, other languages. We have very few words which are unique to our tongue. Why not use Latin, or Egyptian, or German, or Greek, or Mayan, or any other language, considering that most of the words you're going to use have their roots in those other languages anyway?
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And then there's, you know, a name like Volt Spike. Which I snagged for a Spines/Elec Scrapper when the last Issue came out. Metallic spines, obviously. Looks really cool, gotta hand it to the BABster.
I was shocked when I made a dual blades/sr scrapper and found out that Argentum was not taken. Look it up, it's Latin.
Would it be possible for NCSoft to release some no longer used character names? Say characters under level 25 on accounts that have been expired for a year or more? Or, better yet, find a way to tie character names to the global name, so everyone can be Captain Bob?
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To be completely sincere, I know I've ragged on thread placement before, but this thread does truly belong there, IMHO.
Nah, this doesn't seem to be a suggestion or an idea, it sounds like a demand to me.
We needed a demand thread!
I DMEAND CAKES AND PIE!
ASLO I DEMNADS NEMESIS PONIES!
Never surrender! Never give up!
Help keep Paragon City alive with the unofficial City of Heroes Tabletop Role Playing Game!
ASLO I DEMNADS NEMESIS PONIES! |
Are we talking about Bill Clinton's genitals again?
And again, we can already do this without adding global handles, just by adding prefixes or suffixes, or with a slight spelling variation that retains the "feel" of superhero naming conventions, so that possibility already exists.