Suggestion for the Next Vet Reward

Ummm no...bad idea...you are grounded.

While my tongue may have been a little in my cheek with the suggestion, I would certainly get a kick out of it. Here's why:

1) Global IDs were introduced with Issue 3 back in January of 2005. In a little over a month, that will be five years. If a character name isn't associated with a global, that player likely hasn't played the game in half a decade. While I can sympathize with someone coming back to a game and finding out a beloved name has been lost, to expect to hold onto it in perpetuity is fairly ridiculous.

2) People use trial accounts to squat names they may develop concepts for at a later date. I know people who do this and have occasionally scolded them for it. I would support names on trial accounts being freed up as soon as the trial period has ended.

3) My suggestion that it be a petition process and only to be used one time was an attempt to limit a potentially abusive power in the hands of a player.

All that being said, another name purge is also a great alternative. I would only ask that they extend it to all characters on inactive trial accounts (regardless of level) and all characters on ordinary accounts that have been inactive for X years. X being a developer determined suitably long length of time.

Also worth mentioning is this would be a power that I myself wouldn't achieve for another 12-14 months or so on my main account. Back before vet rewards, I regularly canceled my subscription if I wasn't actively playing the game. Never for more than 2-3 months but it added up.

Actually, they said they weren't necessarily going to tell us when they run it - they made a general annoucement to that effect. So they could have run it and we didn't know about it.

As to the OP, making it a petition process might limit it enough- but I'm not really in favor of giving a player the power to take something from another player, generally speaking.

I guess where we part company is on the notion that they are still players. If you haven't paid for your subscription (as opposed to paying but not playing) in almost five years, I'd hazard that you have moved on. There's certainly nothing wrong with moving on - we all will do it eventually - but to keep a candle burning on the off chance that someone will come staggering back should probably have an upper threshold.

I'm not suggesting that their character be deleted or anything like that. Ideally it would work something like a name purge - the name frees up but the character remains. Give them a free renaming token in case they return. I'm not completely heartless on the matter but I'd much rather see a great character name getting used and loved than gathering dust in an account that hasn't been used in five years.

I'm curious what you think that upper threshold should be? I left for almost three years and came back.

Then again, I've since deleted all the characters I played way back then, since things changed a lot and they weren't as much fun anymore, so you might be on to something.

If you're name squatting, you're not actively using the name - you're only holding it until you get an idea for a character, the right powersets come along, etc. The people I know that have done it just let the trial lapse until the idea hits 'em, pay for the month, delete the name from the trial and use it on their main account. Since there are also free re-activation weekends, sometimes the player doesn't even need to pay for a month to grab their name back.

The problem with doing this - IMO - is implied by the very act of using a trial account to squat a name. If you're engaging in this kind of activity, it's probably because your main account is pretty full of characters that you don't want to delete. So what ends up happening is those names just sit there for months and years unused because the person doesn't have the space or inclination to use them on their "real" account. Someone could be using and enjoying those names but instead they're just parked and may never be used. I'm not suggesting that people who do this are just jerks. I know people who do this and I'm sure that they legitimately intend to one day use the names they save. They just never get around to doing so.

And none of this even considers the names that get parked on legitimate trial accounts for people who just wanted to give the game a shot, didn't like it, and never intend on returning. Granted, the trail accounts came well after launch so it's probably debatable (and subjective) how "good" such names really are but I've made surprising finds even as late as this year. Names are important to a lot of players and ones that work for you only get harder as the game rolls goes on. If they aren't be used, haven't been used in a long time, and don't look likely to be used any time soon, set 'em free. That's what I think anyway.

All I can say is that if I were gone for three years, I don't think I would be surprised to come back and find a few of my names had been taken. That's just me though.

However, if I were running a business that depended on keeping customers (even wayward ones) happy, I'd probably make a study of the subscription numbers and try to see if there is a line of demarcation on players who leave and never return. For example, if the numbers were to show that only 2% of players return after an absence of 36 months or more, then I would probably risk potentially annoying those 2% of players in the interest of making some current subscribers happy.

Again, I was being a little facetious with my suggestion since it is highly unlikely the developers would allow a potentially punitive system to be in the hands of players, even if there were limitations on the power. I do think there is something interesting in the notion of a vet power that not only rewards the veteran player but retroactively takes something away from the non-players. I'm not necessarily saying it would be a good thing - only that it would be interesting. To me.

But the potential for abuse would be really bad. For example, I see a new player who has a really awesome name, and I really want it. *BAM* petition and name taken away, new player leaves because of awful service, and that's one less player around. For players who haven't logged on in X years, the fact remains that the players could come back at some point. If somebody comes back to the game after five years only to find that their beloved character name is taken, what makes you think they're going to stay afterwards?

Well, the new player example isn't really germane to this discussion. I clearly said that the only names you could "take" would be the on old accounts that haven't been used since before Jan 2005. The sideline discussion about trial accounts probably muddied that a little so let me clearly say that I'm not suggesting that you can take a name from a new paying player. Now, I'd be all for names becoming unlocked on trial accounts as soon as that trial period lapsed but recognizing that many people are more reasonable than me, I could see them allowing some grace period to give the trial player a chance to make up his or her mind. But trial accounts getting to tie up names in perpetuity? Even if they haven't become paying accounts in years? I can't get with that.

I submit that a character that hasn't been played in five years isn't beloved. I understand loving the name but mere name love shouldn't enable someone to hold onto a name past the demise of their virtual play. And while I have to admit complete ignorance on actual statistics, I suspect that players who return to this game after a period of five years are in the single digit percentages...if not fractions of a percent. Sure, someone will get disappointed in the scenario I suggest but if the numbers aren't significant and it will make the people actually still paying to play the game happy, I say that's a win.

So, I get that you guys don't like the idea. What if it's a microtransaction instead?

EDIT: SS explained my position quite well...it just took me a long time to type this between team afks.

And... how do you know which names fall into this category?
(And every name that falls into this category would be on a character that is over level 35. Since I3 is also when the level cap was raised from 40 to 50, the pool of names you're asking to draw from is very small; lv 35-40 characters that haven't logged in for 5 years)

Any name that fails to return something on /getglobalname is most likely a name that pre-dates globals. At least, that seems to be the prevailing wisdom.

However, you brought up the best point so far with the observation that this may be a very small pool of names to choose from. Obviously, this couldn't work as a solo vet feature because the pool of names vs. the number of vet players might very well be incongruent. Very good point.

Name purges is probably all we're going to get in this arena and that could be perfectly fine. I just wish they would reconsider the level policy when it comes to trial accounts and the very oldest of the inactive accounts. The people that bailed before the first anniversary that still haven't been back are unlikely to return in droves. I'd still like to see those names potentially released, regardless of level.

Actually, the level cap was raised in Issue 1 - just two months after CoH launched. So, the pool of names that havn't logged on for 5 years would include plenty of characters all the way up to level 50, and is probably quite large.

My bad on the date of the cap raise; I didn't come in until I8. However, "level 35-50 characters that haven't logged in for 5 years" doesn't sound like it would be very much bigger than "level 35-40 characters that haven't logged in for 5 years".