Up the Character Limit of the Bio

I'd like the character limit of the bio be increased so there's enough room to fit a Mid's Data Chunk.

I think the ID section needs a complete overhaul entirely myself.

When you look at the ID interface... am I the only one who is reminded of a drivers license?

Why not make it so?

Add a number of sections for character information that we can click for popup boxes so the screen doesn't get cluttered. Physical description boxes. "Known history" Box for backstories. (While they're at it they could actually let us pick our own eye colors with each face)

Add a scroll box to the Description section and fix this bug where what I'm typing stops appearing until I exit, go back in, and then it magically appears somewhere else in the description box.

Along with the suggestion here, increase the character limit on the description section (double it? Pretty please? Or at least 1500-2000?)

New issue anyone? "So's your face"

First thing, honestly, is to fix the editor so things like "Backspacing jumps to a random part of the bio and deletes every other letter" stops happening.

(Though if I saw a MIDS chunk in a bio, first thing I'd assume was that the editor went wonky and spewed garbage out.)

See my Guides and Tutorials

fix the editor, yes please.

more space....sure why not. I almost never read anything longer than a couple of paragraphs, but realize that some folk want to write a short story in bio form. Text doesn't take up much space, so I say let 'em!

If it is made bigger, it really shouldn't be bigger than around 2k. If you want to write a novel about your character, post it on the web and put a link to it in the bio.

Definitely wish the editor wasn't wonky though.

I'd agree with increasing the bio space from 1,024 to 2,048 character spaces. I also like the idea of making the ID screen look more like an actual ID card, with spaces for hair & eye colour, height, etc.

I know that by combining the backstory of three of my alts on Champion server, I was able to get a nice story going. (Okay, I'll admit, I borrowed the concept for their origins from the second season on Veronica Mars. BTW, where would be a good place on these forums to post character bios?)

Hell yes, and PLEASE fix the damn thing! Backspace means I want to go back, return means I want a new line/paragraph. NOT for the cursor to vanish and me have to spent a minute fiddling to get it back in the right place.

Damn thing has been broken since AE. There is NO excuse for it still being that way.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zwillinger GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

/signed!

I would love a bigger character limit! I wish we had at least twice the space we do now!

I'm probably going to get jumped on here but I really really don't want any more bio space available. It has already been increased once and even that wasn't necessary. I like reading bios but seriously the majority of people who use the entire space are poor writers because they have never learned to edit what they are writing.

A bio is supposed to be a brief introduction to the character. If you want to learn more then you talk to them. A bio is not a novel, it is the teaser on the back of the book (or inside flap or whatever).

A "writer" can intrigue you with a hundred words. Asking for a longer bio because you can't write your story is like asking for double the amount of slots per power because you can't make your character work well with only 6.

Learn to work within restrictions and your ability grows. Eliminate restrictions and you eliminate any reason to improve.

On the other hand I do agree completely with fixing the interface. It is beyond broken unless you manage to type your bio perfectly the first time with absolutely zero errors.

I've never wanted to write novel-sized bios in this game, but it's amazing how often my "first draft" of a bio comes in at around 1,400 characters long. It takes me about 10 minutes to write that much then it usually takes me another hour to revise what I want to say down to the annoying 1,024 character limit.

I would be all in favor of doubling the current size from 1,024 to 2,048 and have been suggesting that for years now.

This feels weird coming from me, but...

I have to say that I am not sure adding more room is a good idea.

Do I have to trim my bio (by huge amounts, nearly every single time) to fit it in? YEP!

However, I've noticed that bios just seem to be longer and less fun to read the past year or so.

Could be me, sure... It is funny though, because I just brought this up in-game the other night and I wasn't the only one that was thinking that it seemed like more bios used to be shorter than they are today. *shrugs*


As to making it more of a driver's license form...

I'd really say NO to, for this reason... For those who want such a format, go ahead and make yours that way.
I've seen plenty of awesome bios with such a layout and it is great for some characters.

I've also seen tons of great ones that do not follow any such format and I would absolutely loath to think of limiting and/or forcing any sort of format unto every character's bio.

Just my thoughts and opinions.

I wouldn't complain about getting extra space, by the way, hehe.

Honestly... If they were to increase it, I'd hope not by doubling it!
Maybe adding 25-50% would be good.

So, no Mandu, you are not alone!

Also, Lothic... haha, while funny, that really has nothing to do with anything, haha.

(Also, I had heard they did increase the bio space. That could be untrue, but I had assumed, until now, that it was true. We need confirmation!)

Double or triple the length please.

Here's the problem with doubling the length: sure, going from 1024 to 2048 doesn't seem like a big jump... and it's not like everyone is going to use the full thing, so you don't need to add an extra kilobyte of storage space on every character, right?

Wrong. You can't just add 1024 characters to *some* bios. You have to change the size of the "bio" field in the character database, which means the database immediately grows by a minimum of one kilobyte for every character that exists, even the ones on long-inactive accounts.

Let's take one of the historical high marks of "active subscribers" in CoH, 180k users, and assume that is everyone who has ever played the game. Next let's assume each player has created about 4 characters on average, across all servers. With these fairly lowball estimates, doubling the size of the bio field makes the existing character database jump up in size by 700MB.

180k players * 4 characters * 1kB additional bio = 720 000 kB = 703.125 MB

Or to look at it from another angle: how much space do you need on your servers to make sure that your current players will always be able to buy more character slots? Assuming there are about 90k people who are likely to be interested in the game, adding another 1024 chars to the bio field requires reserving another 34GB (on top of whatever is currently set aside for future character creation).

90k players * 11 servers * 36 characters * 1kB additional bio = 35 640 000 kB = 34804.68 MB = 33.98 GB

Even not accounting for the potential problems with messing around with a database (the CoH character database is an in-house format, there's no telling how easy or hard it would be to expand one of the fields), that's a lot of disk space to set aside just so a few people can express how awesome their character is a little better.

To the OP:

I don't care what your build is or how uber you are. Tell me about your character.

What I have never understood is, if someone "infos" you, why don't they see that same ID Card/Bio-thingy page? It just seems so logical that they should. And yeah, I would like more bio space myself!

Bio space has always been the enemy of creativity in my opinion, not because it forces me to be concise, but because it forces my language to be curt. You can sum up almost every character in a few words, such as "Batman: Fights crime. Parents dead. Super ninja detective." but that does nothing to make the story actually interesting. To me, the bio field should not be an explanation so much as it should serve as inspiration, and in a more complex character, there just isn't enough room.

Quote:

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.