In-Game Significance of Global Handles

I think our global handles should have some sort of official in-game meaning. Most metagame details have some sort of in-game representation, like the server "shards." I don't know if the "doesn't make sense in game" angle is a factor in the devs' refusal to put in a mail system or the ability to invite yourself to your own super group, but it occurs to me as a possibility.

Mostly, though, this is more of a thought exercise than an actual suggestion.

My idea was "press agent" (or journalist, or reporter--something along those lines). Some or many players would resent just about any attempt to force a story connection between their characters, but one thing that connects all of our characters is that the public is more or less aware of them, as shown by Inf, contacts, NPC chatter, etc. Thus, whether the character likes it or not, there must be someone in the media paying attention to their exploits. The global handle represents the media person closest to the hero in terms of the flow of information.

Other ideas?

I'll happily keep global handles out of a 'in-game' significance.


How would a PR type represent heroes and villains at the same time ? I know most of my bluesiders would not deal with someone wh was dealing with redisders.


Its the one thing in game that is ME as a player. Its a in-game way of getting a hold of ME, no matter what character I am on. (or even not on, as Gtells are there when I login)

I think I'm with Catwhoorg on this one.

My heroes & villains do not know each other (well, except for the set of sister/evil twin characters on Guardian) and the idea that they would unwittingly share the same agent (or even have an agent) doesn't sound right to me.

I don't see any need to join them under the global. My friends on Infinity know me by my global, but they also know I run several alts when I group with them - and they know which one by looking at their Friends list.

Plus, I really didn't quite get what this sentence meant:

I'm with the KittyWhoorg on this. I like that the Global Handle is separated from the Player Handles.

I think Teeth is making some sense here, but...

If you want to roleplay that your global handle is the main contact that your heroes run through, I think it's better left on you. Making it a programmed-in facet would be limiting to the average player's imagination.

My global name is the same as one of my less eloquent heroes, having him as the "Press Agent" or such for the rest of them, (or even my villians) would be silly.

I'm trying to figure out how the global handle would do *anything* between my (150 or so) characters, who occupy both hero and villainside.

The closest I have to this, actually, is one character I remade on another server - where I do have another version of my namesake. RP-wise, the first character has a sense of deja vu (from the "other" server,) but it's not returned, and neither of them knows why the first character would in any way think they knew the second.

It's interesting to write, but that's very much a corner case for me.

See my Guides and Tutorials

My global chat handle initially had nothing to do with any of my toons. As I recall we can change our global handle too, right? Because it's so mutable why should it be associated with any of your characters in the game?

I don't care for the idea, but I don't oppose it, either, since I could easily ignore it.

The game has plenty of aspects that I simply ignore. It doesn't make them bad, or a mistake to implement; they're just not for me.

I like the idea of it, in a way, but can see how people wouldn't. I'm thinking now that my global might be a journalist, writing about the various adventures of the characters I play...and they get info passed to them by him, or they steal it from him, depending on faction. It'd be nice if he was allowed to keep recipes or enhancements for one of them to give to another sometimes...

Well, I don't think all of my characters would be connected, just cause I play them, but all of my characters on Infinity are part of my "Pepverse" storyline. =^_^=

All of my characters are being somehow manipulated by an exceptionally powerful extra-dimensional entity known as 'NarfMann.' They have no idea that everything they do is being controlled by NarfMann, and probably would think you're crazy if you mentioned it. The exception to this is my self-aware controller, who knows that he has no control over his actions, and that he's just the plaything of some bored guy sitting at a machine pulling his metaphorical strings. Naturally, he's generally believed to be completely insane.

I created the majority of my characters prior to getting the game, and have just created the closest version possible in game...with one or two put on hold til I re-roll them when GR comes out. There are a few exceptions of course, my VEAT for example. I have tweaked most of them so that they're more in-line with COH lore though, without sacrificing too much. Global handles? ... sure!

Why would my "Global Handle PR Rep" exist cross-server, anyway? They are multi-dimensional journalists and news honkeys and agents? I don't think so. There's an exact-same copy in each dimension? I don't think so.

Why would my Global Handle PR Rep work for close to 120 heroes and villains (and soon to be Praetorians as well)? Wouldn't get enough time to sleep between all the article writing and phone answering and hand waving. Not to mention the really awkward hours when there are 13 heroes and 27 villains waiting in the same waiting room on their appointment with their rep. Really, really big waiting room.

Just... no. It doesn't work, even if you ignore a single agent working with both heroes and villains.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dispari I don't know why Dink thinks she's not as sexy as Jay was. In 5 posts she's already upstaged his entire career.

I'm with Agge on this.

For all my characters on ONE SERVER, sure, it'd make sense to have a common 'agent'. We could maybe (!) even combine heroes and villains.

But once you jump servers, it all falls down, you see, because agent on Shard A has not ever been influenced or even aware of the agent on Shard B. They're not the same person.

And I can deal with a few OOC comments.


It ain't broke. Don't fix it.

As much fun as it might be rationalising the existence of your global in-game, I think it should remain a purely optional thing.

My global name is the name of my main.

He is connected in some way to most of my characters. Being a scientist who specializes in technological advancements, if any of my characters have techno-doodads they usually got them from him.

My main villain is the same person as my main hero, only he's from another dimension. Remember the Portal Corps mission where you discover a world populated by ghosts because you destroyed the world? My main villain is that version of my hero. The "body" you discover in the mission is actually another version from a parallel dimension. My villain killed that version and stole his portal generator.

In Going Rogue both of them will shift towards neutral and become mirror images of each other. My villain is trying to stop my hero from becoming him, since not only is the villain from a different dimension, he is also from several hundred years in that dimension's future. (My hero has nanomachines in his body that fuel his regeneration, making him essentially immortal)

Hero is claws/regen, villain is a DM/Nin stalker. Both are 60% cybernetic. The hero's claws are energy blades generated by his forearms, whereas my villain's energy blades stopped functioning over 200 years ago, so he made a deal with the ghosts of his world to gain power over the netherworld. Basically, since they couldn't kill him, he agreed to leave the world to them and never return. They gave him the power of the netherworld to assist in his navigation of the space-time continuum. Which makes perfect sense because what the netherworld really is, is the buffer zone that keeps the different dimensions separate.

Brain hurt yet?

Point being, the "PR agent" or "reporter" thing doesn't make sense for my stable of characters, especially seeing as how most of them are aware of the other servers (they are just very closely paralleled dimensions, where the color of someone's shirt and such are the only differences)

If I were forced into something involving my global name, it would kill the storyline I've spent 4 years writing out. I'd be a little annoyed by that to say the least.