Crazy Name Idea You'll Probably Hate

Yeah. Okay. I know. Hear me out, pls.

This issue has been around since the first Really Cool Name got picked by someone who then logged off and never got back on. Why am I revisiting it? Well, I was listening to the recent convention podcasts here at cityofheroes.com and during the "What If" panel, one of the developers suggested what if you never had to worry about your hero name being taken? What if when you create your character and pick the name Super Dude you get to be Super Dude even though there's already twenty-five other Super Dudes on the server? What if you never had to get that annoying pop up saying to try something else because someone before you already has it? This game is supposed to be fun! It's not supposed to annoy you before you even get into Outbreak/Breakout!

But of course, it's impossible, right? I mean every hero character name has to be unique, otherwise you'd have a hundred Caped Crusaders running around at the same time. I'm not even sure if what I'm about to suggest is even codable, but that's for the developers to figure out. I imagine one of them wouldn't suggest it if there weren't at least one way to pull this off, and I think I have a way that would become digestible to the community so long as you guys don't dismiss it out of hand.

We already have two different names for each of us. There's the Global Name which is unique to each account, and then whatever hero you personally choose to play at the time. Say you create two heroes you've already made. One is called "Popular Name Lady" and the other is called "Unique Name Guy". Your Global Name is "Fu Man Chu".

When you created Unique Name Guy, the game did check the server to see if another Unique Name Guy has ever been created. It determined one never was, but even so, it ascribes a large random number to your character. You never see this number, it's just there for coding purposes. For all I know, every character already has its own unique number or other identifier aside from the name. If not, the coding guys could add it. Again, I'm not a coder myself so if programmers couldn't do that, I'm sure I'll hear about it. This whole idea kinda hinges on every character having an unique identifier aside from the character name.

Now while the game checked and found no one else ever in the history of the game has made a character called Unique Name Guy, it also checked to see if there's currently anyone playing the game with that name and again got a zero. This is just a redundancy check at this point cuz you already know and the game already knows, but it will do this every time you log in with any character. Why? Just cuz. So you go into the game and play around with Unique Name Guy and everything is peachy. You don't see anyone else with your name. Everybody sees your name. The sun rises and sets and all is right with the world.

Then you log out and you come back to create Popular Name Lady. Just before you finish up and end up in Outbreak or Breakout or wherever, the game checks the server to see if there's ever been another Popular Name Lady character out there and it turns out there's two hundred and seventy-three. So again, the first time you log in with this character, the server assigns a unique number to your character that you never see, and you go into the game. The game also checks every time you log in with this character to see if anyone else is playing their character named Popular Name Lady. Turns out at this very moment there's twelve other Popular Name Ladies on the server. One of them is in Atlas Park at the same time you show up there. You skipped the Outbreak thing cuz you're tired of trying to get the Isolator badge and who isn't?

So you're standing there in front of That Liberty Chick and you're face to face with someone who wore the same proverbial dress as you to the party. You're Popular Name Lady and she's Popular Name Lady. What'll they say at the country club?

Remember that Global Name we always have? In this example, I said your Global Name is Fu Man Chu. By the way, I was gonna call the Global Name Fu Bar Chu but for some reason the forum software censored "*****." WTF? I didn't know that was a dirty word. The military uses it, how bad could it be? Anyway, by default, if a Character Name matches one already on the server, then the game will amend your Global Name to your Character Name, but this will only be the case so long as there's more than one of you on the server at the same time. If you're the only Popular Lady Name on the server, you'll be just Popular Lady Name. However, if more than one Popular Lady Name is online at the same time, then over your head it would read your Global Name before your Character Name. It would go where we currently have "titles" for upper level characters. In this case the Title Line would read Fu Man Chu's and then below that Popular Lady Name. So everyone around you would see you as "Fu Man Chu's Popular Name Lady" and nine game sessions out of ten you probably wouldn't even notice.

Now, if you actually team up with someone else who has the same name you have, then there would be the numeric thing that happens now on the Test Server. You know. When you transfer a character from any other server to the Test Server, it automatically adds a 1 to your name if someone before you already has that name. At least, that's what happened to me when I transferred Elusive over there ages ago.

Let's say inside the team up window on the left there above the chat bubble you'd be Popular Name Lady 1 and the other player would be Popular Name Lady 2, or vice versa depending on who joined the team first. That would be for chat purposes & stuff. When you disbanded from the team, you'd go back to the way things were before.

There's a number of benefits to this. For one thing, we'd no longer see people trying to trick the game into letting them have ".Popular_Naem*Ladee" which can really stink if you're trying to text them. Also, most of the time if you pick an unique enough name this won't be a bother. Even if you picked a relatively popular name, the odds of you running into another player with your name are not all that high, so you'd be able to enjoy having a character named Popular Name Lady and 90% of the time you won't have to even think about it. You'll just be able to be that and so will anybody else. Also, it'd open up the possibilities that are currently weighed down in the game with several years of really good name choices already being taken. It would no longer matter, because the unique identifier would apply to previously generated characters too. They'd all get assigned numbers, and all this is backend stuff that no one is supposed to notice, so if someone has been gone from the game four years and they come back and log in with their Popular Name Lady, they might not even notice that a dozen people since them have used the same name.

I understand there's some areas this doesn't address. For example, you wouldn't be able to create eight toons with the same name. You'd still have to have each hero unique to your own account, but you can now create the same toon name on multiple servers. I have one Elusive and two Elusivers. I would have had three Elusives, but someone already took the name Elusive on the other servers. I also have a Benny Edison on both Pinnacle and Triumph. He's a fifty on Triumph but I still wanted to play him so I remade him on Pinnacle.

Global chat might be a problem. If you wanted to send a message to Popular Name Lady 27 and not have the other two hundred plus Popular Name Ladies see it, there'd have to be a way to do that. I think again the Global Name would come into play here, or the game would be smart enough to know with the unique numeric hidden in the game which Popular Name Lady you've fraternized with and would only want to talk with that one. I dunno. That's for programmers to hammer out the kinks. I'm sure it's workable, but if the programmers don't think ppl would want to BE ANY CHARACTER NAME YOU WANT REGARDLESS WHO CAME BEFORE YOU DID AND PICKED THE REALLY COOL NAMES YEARS BEFORE YOU EVEN BOUGHT THE STUPID GAME well they're just gonna continue spending their time and effort elsewhere. The Global Name would still have to be unique. That can't change, but whatever character you currently are shouldn't have to be unique. So what if "Masked Avenger" turns out to be really really popular? Maybe you guys could start a club! Maybe there'd be Super Groups where the only requirement is that you create a toon called Parallel Illusion... oh wait. That already happened, didn't it?

Okay. I'm gonna go hide behind the couch now while you guys shoot down my idea. =)

Shouldn't this be in the suggestions forums, along with the eleventy billion identical suggestions?

Did you really say "The military uses it, how bad could it be?"

Really?

Merry christmas.

I don't gave to worry about my hero name being taken. Because nobody else can take it.

Your suggestion doesn't change the fact that it allows multiples of the same exact toon name on a server.

Apparently that doesn't bother you, and I'm sure there are others who agree with your position.

However, I and many others don't. I wish you could have heard the reaction at Hero Con when it was suggested that something like this be implemented. More than 95% of the room roared in strong disapproval.

I like the fact that I have to be creative to get a unique (server-wise, anyway) name, and that I know for certain that NOBODY else on my server has that name (if I'm creative enough, nobody on ANY server may have it).

So to me, and apparently a LOT of others, any suggestion that reduces the uniqueness of names is not palatable.

This idea existed before COH was conceived. When COH was created, it was rejected. It's been re-suggested regularly through the years, and, so far, continues to be ignored by the Devs.

I think it's a good idea. I mean, it would make me personally very unhappy, and it would make most of the people I've talked to about it very unhappy, and it would make the Devs very unhappy, and it would punish the most creative and imaginative folks among us.

But it would reward the unimaginative, the fixated, and the simpleminded, and that's the important thing.

This has been brought up before, with pretty much the same responses each time. And my answer will also be the same...if someone were to come up with a way to do it that made it easy to tell exactly who was who without being either ugly or immersion breaking (and I consider adding numbers, unless that was intentionally done by the player as part of the character concept, or appending our global names to the end, to be both) then I might get behind it. But I like the fact that names are unique, so probably not. All of the ideas I've heard so far for making the duplicate names unique for purposes of eacy identification have been quite immersion breaking, and in a game where immersion is considered so important I can see why it hasn't been done. Nor would I want it to be.

I will give you the biggest complaint about non-unique names. It's very common and very, very simple:

I don't want anyone to be [Main Character] except for me. I've got [Main Character] on [one/a few/several/most/every] [North American/European] server.

Also: Did you seriously write "pls" and then write a gigantic, two-and-a-half page post full of full words? Give me a break.

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.

As noted in the past; this idea has a good solid 'no' from the playerbase in general, and appending aGlobalName to your character's name on screen can be really bulky. I mean, there are some people with some long Global Handles (check your Global Channels) and sometimes longer character names. This would make Petitions for ingame bad behavior a lot tougher generally, and be more of a pain than a boon (except to the Amoseying Spyd0rM@n types out there).

Also, A Suggestion veiled as a Question is neither one. Nice try though.

And as far as Foxtrot Uniform Bravo Alpha Romeo goes; it is a bad word, and during the days of the Great Wars; our men in uniform used raw language, but preferred to uphold higher ideals (we're only human). Thus the acronym in lieu of the 'naughty' words became de rigueur in much the way that "nudity is seen, but never noticed" by a gentleman.

Sorry, never got past the first paragraph. You left out one important detail about the the Dev's questioning the players at HeroCon about non-unique names, it was the resounding "HELL NO!!!" the crowd shouted out.

There may have been a few attendees applauding the idea, but quite frankly, we couldn't hear them above the din.

Here's the thing.
I get spam from Wannabuymyinf. I petition wannabuymyinf. I know there's no confusion (barring me mistyping, and I can point to the logs) - that name is unique on the server, tied to an account.

I get pestered by HeyImAJerk. I know, if I /petiton HeyImAJerk, they'll get the right guy. There's no "Is that HeyImAJerk@Brattykid, HeyImAJerk@Justkidding, HeyI'mAJerk@SteveMartinFan..." to go on. There's only one person with that name on that server.

I have a great time teamed with AwesomeDom. I don't think about friending them - end of the night, I'm tired, I go to bed. I see AwesomeDom in broadcast and say "Hey, he was pretty cool to play with!" Not "Is that AwesomeDom@Domino, AwesomeDom@MindMe, AwesomeDom@DominickCOH" - that I didn't get to see because "at the time there was only one, but now there's more."

Plus, yes, I *like* being the only one of me on the server. And I've hated the way the various "share the name" solutions came out looking. Usually some monstrosity, or the system is clunky, or otherwise it's just... bad.

See my Guides and Tutorials

I finally started checking out STO, and I may be wrong, but it seems they are going to do something like this. By that I mean not require unique ship names. Now I can see it there more than here because ship names should be simple and powerful. However, my first thought even there was, "I dont want 233 USS Victory's running around. Or 327 USS Valiant's. Etc. Even worst idea here.

Okay I'm not against <character name@global name>, however the original post makes the process needlessly more complicated than that with all the (hidden) numbering. After having an unique global name, nothing is needed because you will have to come up with unique names for your "stable" of characters.

At minimum it would be needed for serve-rless play. It mimics comics where there are sometimes characters with the same name at different comics. (Copyrights for similar art aside, no company should have ever have been allowed to trademark names. I'm looking at you Thor.) Take a look at how many Robin Hoods there are in all media types.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Memphis_Bill Here's the thing. I get spam from Wannabuymyinf. I petition wannabuymyinf. I know there's no confusion (barring me mistyping, and I can point to the logs) - that name is unique on the server, tied to an account. I get pestered by HeyImAJerk. I know, if I /petiton HeyImAJerk, they'll get the right guy. There's no "Is that HeyImAJerk@Brattykid, HeyImAJerk@Justkidding, HeyI'mAJerk@SteveMartinFan..." to go on. There's only one person with that name on that server.

The argument that people would be hard to petition is entirely suspect though. Like that other superhero game (I tried it for a few weeks), this is not difficult to handle. You click on their name in the chat window and all the options from sending chat, ignoring them, or petitioning them should be there. We are close to that here in CoH.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Memphis_Bill I have a great time teamed with AwesomeDom. I don't think about friending them - end of the night, I'm tired, I go to bed. I see AwesomeDom in broadcast and say "Hey, he was pretty cool to play with!" Not "Is that AwesomeDom@Domino, AwesomeDom@MindMe, AwesomeDom@DominickCOH" - that I didn't get to see because "at the time there was only one, but now there's more."

If you've teamed with someone you like, you can then click on their name or their character and add them as a friend. It literally takes a second to do.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Memphis_Bill Plus, yes, I *like* being the only one of me on the server. And I've hated the way the various "share the name" solutions came out looking. Usually some monstrosity, or the system is clunky, or otherwise it's just... bad.

From what I've seen if CoH does go to a sever-less system, you are unlikely to meet a similar named character in one of a hundred instances of Atlas Park, unless the name is really generic.

Triumph: White Succubus: 50 Ill/Emp/PF Snow Globe: 50 Ice/FF/Ice Strobe: 50 PB Shi Otomi: 50 Ninja/Ninjistu/GW Stalker My other characters

While it does suck not getting the name you want... (and it does) what sucks even more is having your name and seeing someone else with it also! I had that happen in another game while the name wasn't exact it still was close enough that people were trying to pm him thinking he was me and the other way around so I bribed the guy to change it I guess it meant more to me than it did to him
I lucked out and got the name I wanted as my global as well as the name on the server I play..
Another thing to take into concideration is people getting your name to mess with you and to be a jerk... "Hey I teamed with Randomguy last night and what a total jerk!" Then the real randomguy comes on and people give him crap for stuff he didn't do or say... besides the confusing aspect
like having 2 people with the same name in broadcast saying stuff you have no idea who is who and who you are talking too or how about a whole sg with all the same name!!!
(although that would be funny)

Side note:It never ceases to amaze me when you get a name you thought would be taken...

So I see 1 Popular Name Lady on /search, as two others are hidden, two were dropped off to truncate the list and one was outside my search parameters.
I type:
"/tell Popular Name Lady, Forming Positron Team, interested?"

Who gets the tell?