NCSoft's Name Reservation Policy

You cannot prove the opposite, and I didn't introduce any of "my maths" to the issue. I was pretty direct in saying that without specific numbers that would predict the consequences of this action one way or another, which may not even exist, what facts I do have are enough to make a decision based solely on what will events happen without knowing the magnitudes. The default action when you cannot prove an action will be beneficial is to not do it. If you can prove that the default action when you cannot prove an action will not be beneficial is to do it, you've just proven that the devs should do *everything* that cannot be proven to be detrimental.

People make business decisions based on incomplete information all the time. I do it every day. Its as simple as this: the purge has a chance to cost us future customers. You can't prove it will gain or retain more customers. But I can prove that the purge will not solve the direct problem of people wanting names they cannot have: with very reasonable assumptions you have to conclude that the odds of someone that would have quit if they cannot get a certain set of names actually getting them after a purge (as opposed to another player that also wants those names and may or may not care as much) are low. Ergo, the burden of proof is on the people advocating the purge. Its not on me, were it my decision to make, to fully justify not approving it. From a business decision, the sequence above adequately justifies requiring evidence its actually a good idea.


You're ignoring direct evidence that people who return and find their names purged don't like it. That's not a theory: that's a fact. The only thing that is theoretical is whether that would deter someone from resubscribing, and whether they would mention this fact to other players. And I think there is as much evidence for that as there is for players explicitly unsubscribing due to being unable to find names and mentioning this fact to others.

Both of these seem fairly obvious.


In any case, its not my decision to make so my opinion on the matter means no more or less than any other players. I was simply stating the specific process by which I would make that decision were it my decision to make, in response to the notion that I wasn't taking the proper facts and circumstances into account. I took my personal preferences out of the equation and framed it as a business decision, which in this case I believe it is. And that's how I would make the business decision. In the situation where a decision needs to be made that does not have game design entanglements, you do not need to prove something is bad to avoid doing it. The threshold of evidence to advise caution is low. A reasonable theory that suggests its bad is good enough to stop the process in my opinion. In the face of such a theory, the burden of proof shifts to proving beyond reasonable doubt that either that theory is false, or that the net overall effect of the action is to have a net benefit that outweighs the costs. That hasn't been demonstrated in the case of a name purge.

Both turorials are adequate as far as teaching mechanics goes, but GR's is far superior in terms of immersion and level design (CoV's likewise is superior, but the starting missions are a bit lacking compared to GR's).

</digression>

Some people find brainstorming helpful (your mileage may vary, but I see a few names among those examples that I might tweak into alts for myself in time for the X2XP weekend). Inspiration can be catalyzed - flexibility is the key.

True on both points. I saw one name in that list that looked like with some changes I might be able to use for something else, but I don't think I'll make a character just for it. Most of my brainstorming is done in my head anyway.

By the way, as long as I'm thinking about it, where'd your signature pic come from?

And every argument here can be made the other way with just as much validity. The simple fact that in your opinion, more weight lies in one direction does not constitute proof. To quote, "That decision is based primarily on the presumption that a purge will not positively increase subscriptions." One, this isn't a presumption, its an assumption. Its made without a factual basis. We have samples of proof in just this thread alone, notwithstanding everyone who hasn't commented here that diametrically opposes that assumption. It is a -fact- that when we discussed this in the roleplayers' channel, only two out of more than 50 or so people that have left the game and come back objected to a name release because their names might have been been gone when they came back.

You also seem to be missing the point. No one is after a specific name. What the name release would do is open up more of the iconic names to people currently playing. If we're going to get into theoretical assumptions, we can also take the fact that one of the main reasons for leaving an MMO is boredom. If you are to the point where you're spending more time trying to get a name that fits your concept than you'd like, and possibly not ever getting one, that would contribute to boredom for very many people. If you would be more likely to stay because it is even a little easier to find a name you can use, then we can make the assumption that a name release would be be beneficial because it would increase the duration of a current players interest in the game, and therefore make good sense to do. So its 'provable' one way as much as it is the other. You're ignoring direct evidence, even in this thread, that what you propose as being likely, isn't very likely at all.

Its perfectly fine for everyone to have their own opinion about things; that's not at all at issue. Presenting things as 'facts' and 'proof' when there are neither is questionable.

Anecdotal evidence is anecdotal.

For my position on it: it makes zero economic sense for NCSoft to do a name purge.

The fact of the matter is, their job is to get $15 a month from as many players as they can. If you're here on the boards posting about how you can't get a name you want, it does not matter - you're still paying $15 a month.

On the other hand, when NCSoft sends out a reactivation weekend, they do so with the intention of snaring lapsed subscribers - the ones who are not paying $15 a month. I'm no expert, but I would be willing to bet that a full roster of characters that had to be renamed is not the most inviting re-introduction to the game.

Unless it is provable to NCSoft that it is in their economic interests to do a name purge, it makes no sense to do it. That proof would come in the form of the exit surveys - a bunch of people canceling their accounts and filling out the survey, saying that they canceled their subscription *because* they could not get the names they wanted for their characters.

As it is now, NCSoft could cripple their reactivation efforts to appease a small but vocal forum minority, who are on the forums and therefore not sufficiently incensed to cancel their accounts until there is a name purge. Or they could maintain the status quo. It would take a lot of people quitting the game over naming issues - enough to make an impact on the bottom line.

I rather wonder which event causes a bigger spike in subscriber rates - a reactivation weekend or a name purge. My guess, and it is a guess, is the former.

Your $15 a month is good. Not burning the bridge and keeping the chance of getting someone else's $15 a month? Even better.

Partly in response to this, and partly because we're getting into the length of forum that causes people to skip over earlier pages, it might be time for a recap.

Basically, the proposal is this. Any accounts inactive for over 2 years, and any characters under a certain level (25 and 40 have been presented) would be eligible for release. Before the release, the account holders would be emailed preferably in conjunction with a free reactivation weekend.

The net result of this would be that anyone who was even considering coming back, would never lose a name. You'd have to skip every free reactivation weekend for 2 full years in order to have a name purged. There are a lot of players that come back for a month or two at a time when they're bored. There are also a lot of players who have no intention of coming back. With this in place, those who wanted to reserve their names could, while those that just don't care to play any more would have their names freed up. This virtually eliminates any negative effect on inactive players, as it gives them the choice to either secure their names or let them be released.

Note: There are currently at least 75,000 inactive accounts, and probably more than that, since that number is based on the peak following the CoV release and doesn't include any who may have quit before then and not renewed for CoV. (numbers based on NCSoft releases, most current numbers for January 2010 not available, or at least not found.)

You're ignoring what I said. I'm saying if I was making the business decision, I have no burden of proof to prove the purge is negative. I'm saying the advocate for the purge has all the burden of proof to prove its positive. In the event of a tie, the purge loses. That is the normal way to deal with any situation with known but unquantified risk, and no proof of positive gain. And that's why the automatic presumption is that the act has no positive gain unless it can be proved. The person proposing a purge doesn't get to assume it has a positive gain without proof.

Again: if you're saying we can go back and forth, the purge loses by your own statement, if it was my decision to make. Its not, and I'm not saying I can prove the purge is less beneficial than the lack of a purge. I'm saying I would have no need to if I were making the decision. This isn't tort where the 51% position wins. This is not a game that has to be made fair. This is risk management where the person without the airtight argument loses, and proposals must be justified, they don't have to be countered.

If you don't like decisions being made in this way, fortunately for you I make no business decisions for NCSoft. However, my experience tells me that my way of doing it is not uncommon.

It's my own variation of my Bartle Test score.

The small sample size notwithstanding, until there's a similar one for the opposite side of the argument, i.e. players who are now quitting because there hasn't been a name purge, the facts in this debate are still too nebulous for a cut-and-dried decision. NC Soft still would have good reason not to alienate ~4% of potential returned business if they can't point to a loss of current subscribers over the issue. (As long as we're playing with numbers, that's a potential loss of as much as $45,000 for just one month, to go by your estimate on inactive accounts.) Did you ask how many players in the RP channel had decided to quit since "iconic names" aren't available on this particular server, the lottery-like odds aside that they'd be able to obtain the specific ones they wanted?

Even then, NC Soft would be advised to perform their own surveys before making a business decision - and businesses have to be both conservative and methodical at every step of the decision process.

Advocating against it entails the same burden. You cannot simply choose to not carry that burden because you don't want to. You're essentially saying 'we should do it this way because we've always done it this way.' You're also ignoring the details of the proposal. Under the proposal, the only names to be released would be those from people who no longer have an interest in playing the game. There is no proof of any substantial negative effect under the current proposal, but there is a substantial benefit to implementing it. The person arguing against a proposal doesn't get to assume it has a negative effect without proof.

Exactly. That reason has way more weight than you're assigning it, especially in a business context.

Even then, it's not so much a matter of "we should do it this way because we've always done it this way," but rather "why should we change what we've been doing? How will it benefit us to change?"

I'll have to check that out, then. It sounds familiar, but I'm not sure...

This is why I've stated before that it would be better if this thread left 'business' out of it, and simply gave their opinion as to whether they would like to see a name release or not. I'm perfectly happy to leave the actual business decision up to NCSoft.

It'd be much more than that, actually, but its not really a potential loss. First of all, there's the assumption that all those players will come back. Since CoV launched, there's been only 3 quarters that have seen a net gain in players, and they were small gains at that. Anyone who counts on all those people coming back after that length of time is being overly-optimistic. At this point, those players that have left for over two years can safely be called a realised loss. To illustrate: If I bet you five dollars per person that those players wouldn't come back, I'd lose individually on some, but I'd gain in the end, because I'd win many more bets than I'd lose. If it were me, I'd try to keep the people here now happy, because that's guaranteed. The inability to grab a name may not be enough in and of itself to cause people to quit, but it will contribute to the general ennui that players feel after an extended time with any game.

I didn't count, but there were a good number that said that's why they'd taken breaks before, and came back when they a) had new ideas, or b) got bored with wherever they were at in the meantime. Not all of that lost revenue would have been saved by haveing more names available, but its likely that some of it would.

Very true. As with most large companies though, they don't look at everything all at once, and seeing the subject here in the forums, might serve to give them a reason to look at it themselves. That's why I started the thread. So keep contributing, whether you agree or not, and hopefully it will grab their attention sooner or later.

Yep.

/thread

"People who take offense to IC actions OOCly need to learn to differentiate between the two... Or change their damn meds."

Actually, 'we should do it this way because we've always done it this way,' Is the type of attitude that caused the downfall of a lot of major companies. Ford lost the stranglehold it had on the auto-industry because of it. IBM lost its lion's share of the computer market because of it. We've all just seen the downfall of more than a few large banks because of this. In any scenario, it is of equal importance to consider why you want to keep things the same just as much as you should consider why you want to change them. 'We should do it this way because we've always done it this way,' is never a valid reason for anything.

Did you rest the second part of my post? Heck, you quoted it.

The default is not to change, unless there is a good reason with supporting evidence for it. Changing because of hypotheticals leads very quickly to ruin.

Yes, I did. Problem is, the first bit of your post didn't agree with the second bit. When considering an issue, you should never have a 'default'. Whichever direction is chosen, whether to change, or not to change, should be made because its a good reason with supporting evidence. Not changing without a good reason is just as silly as changing without a good reason. Changing because of an hypothetical is the only time change ever happens. Even with surveys and polls and such, at the end of it all, you have an hypothetical, and it will remain that way until someone invents a time machine and goes to check for themselves what the results will be. Anyone who behaves otherwise is perfectly free to do so, but I like logic.

NC Soft has already made a major decision to change the game: They've invested a lot of money in Going Rogue to attract both new and returning players. A name purge, by comparison, is a side project that would distract from their main focus and impact potential revenue.

And that's precisely the way businesses operate. Unless someone making a proposal can assure the decision-makers that they won't incur significant risk, it ain't gonna happen.

Continuing to pull figures out of my top hat, if a given promotional campaign - let's say an e-mail one, since those costs are minimal and MMOs do them regularly - woos back inactive players for a month (7% response is a typical estimate for such cases), NC Soft stands to make almost $80,000. If, however, a similar percentage of them don't because their main got renamed to Captain Generica, then they would lose over $5,000 in revenue. Boom - that eats right into your overhead. That's quite sufficient to sink a project in the business world.

On the opposite side of the argument, the figures for quitting players over this naming issue, evidently only small percentage of regular attrition, would still have to be compared to the costs of implementing a name purge (from the coding to the customer service). Since even the strongest proponents of a name purge currently on the boards aren't prepared to quit over this - especially not with all the new content from Going Rogue, issue 19, and the upcoming issue 20 - NC Soft doesn't have a problem from their bottom-line perspective.

But, in business, there is a default. The default model is the one that lets you meet all your expenses and realize a profit.

Does that mean that business never changes? No. But they are only going to change after they've examined the issues and determined that the risks are outweighed by the benefits.

If you gave a business an opportunity to make a $1 million profit on an investment of $1, they would jump on it. Even if the chance was one in two or one in ten of the investment paying off. But if the chance is infinitesimal, then it's not a good risk to take. See: the lottery.

This is what successful businesses do.

Conversely, if you tell a business that they can make $1600 on a $1500 investment, for a net profit of $100, it's going to need to be a nearly sure thing before they'll make that expenditure.

This is not about hypotheticals, this is about risks. Businesses are risk averse to one degree or another. You won't find businesses taking on hypothetical risks willy-nilly, because it's foolish in the long term.

And, yes, the tools do exist to assess the risks. Will you ever see a guaranteed thing in business? No. Apple will come out with a new iPhone, but there's a chance that it will flop. Not a large chance, but that chance does exist. Will Apple still make a significant investment in a new iPhone, despite the fact that there exists some element of risk? Yes, because they've run the numbers, and it makes sense to take that risk.

Will Apple diversify into auto-making? No. There's a significant investment that would have to be made, and there would be a significant risk that the auto line would not sell well, that the electronic expertise they have will not translate well into mechanical know-how, and that the Apple brand would become damaged as a result.

This is basic stuff, business and economics 101. If you have something that works and makes money, don't mess with it unless the benefit outweighs the risks.

In a case where one was able to go out and find the info needed, there'd be no running around at all. However, this brings me back to the point I've stated several times previously. The purpose of this thread is to get people's opinions on it, not to try and make any business decision. It's a bit naive to think that any of us could make a good business decision with the facts in hand. This is just a first step in bringing the matter to the dev's attention, if they're not already thinking about it, and letting them make the decision. To think that we can make it it pointless without the kind of information that only they would be able to get. Keep posting though, because the more posts we have, and the longer we stay on the front page, the greater the likelihood is that it gets noticed!

...Yes, that's rather what we've been saying. If you could go out and get the info to prove that a name purge is more beneficial to NCSoft than keeping the names, that's fantastic.

And in this case there's miniscule risk at all that those players would be 'lost' because they more then likely won't come back anyway. They've pretty much shown that already. For there to be any real risk, there would need to be proof that a significant number would actually return. That proof doesn't exist at present. If and when it does, this argument becomes relevant again.

Actually what you've been saying is that there's no need to get proof at all, since you're not wanting to change things. That is simply false, and rather naive. Proof is needed on both sides. If you could go out and get the info to prove that NCSoft than keeping the names is more beneficial than releasing them, that's fantastic.

The burden of proof is with the proposal. Always. If you want to change that, ironically the burden of proof is with the proposal to change it.

You don't have to convince me, even if you could. You have to convince the people with the power to change it, all of which will place the burden of proof on you to prove the proposal is worth doing. This is not a debate point. This is a fact. So far, I believe the odds you've managed to demonstrate that are vanishingly low.

You seem to believe this is an argument for which you can score points against me. Beating me wins you nothing in this case. It leaves you still with the burden of proof to demonstrate a purge would be in the best interests of the game. A burden you're free to deny having, but you have all the same.

Understand, I'm not trying to prove to you that your proposal is bad. I'm here to tell you your proposal has no chance of happening without a much better argument that justifies it. That's a subject upon which I have specific expertise.