Discussion: One game, one global server access
By
0verload,
Posted on: 2011-03-14 17:12 in News, Events and Announcement Discussion
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Your post goes in so many directions I can't even begin to decipher what you are trying to complain about. I'll just take a stab at your last paragraph. I see all kinds of thanks in pretty much every official communication they have had with the player base. There's also veteran rewards that have continued to pile up, some of which are very cool. For one, I wish I had left my account active during some of the gaps I've had so I could use the auction house from wherever.|
Originally Posted by Ectomy
Incarnate oh hell yeah alpha slots, branching I feel that finally the game has enough content to actually draw back alot of guys that left. I get into a TF within the first 10 minutes of trying. Players doing TF again sweet 1st ten minutes 4 players drop same old end game.
Looking for an active list of players not fillers I have a couple months left on my subscription and it is really a trial account at this point. The "price" of loyality has just become offensive. Stay through April get into beta stay through get this glowie under you. Whatever happened to hey thanks for being here this long. Sorry |
I mean what do you really want? It sounds like even if they sent you a personal thank you card, you wouldn't be satisfied. You are certainly snubbing the latest gimmick they have out. What is your recommendation?
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Your problem is server community.... get yourself to check another community and into the community important global channels. End of teh summer you are welcome on UNION.
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Originally Posted by Ectomy
I have made my way through alot of this and agree the reason I stepped away from the game is the inability to get in TF that make it to the end. I logged in waited 4 hours for ITF to even start to form. After another hour of recruiting we'd head out a man or 2 short make it through the 1st couple missions until one or 2 players would time out from no longer moving leaving the 3 of us to wonder how we are ever going to pull apart the nexus.
I always hated posters that stated how much easier it is to find teams on this game or that game. How the search engine over here works compared to CoX. For 6 years I lived and bleed CoX and enjoyed so much of it. Then I realized that if you stay a loyal customer meant more to them then me have being a loyal customer did. I applaud the devs efforts to keep blowing new life into such a great game. I have wanted 50+ content ever since I leveled my 1st toon to 50 and just hated "retiring" him. Incarnate oh hell yeah alpha slots, branching I feel that finally the game has enough content to actually draw back alot of guys that left. I get into a TF within the first 10 minutes of trying. Players doing TF again sweet 1st ten minutes 4 players drop same old end game. Looking for an active list of players not fillers I have a couple months left on my subscription and it is really a trial account at this point. The "price" of loyality has just become offensive. Stay through April get into beta stay through get this glowie under you. Whatever happened to hey thanks for being here this long. Sorry |
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Hangon... I'm confused. You want to half/merge the available servers to get population higher so you can run ITF's without lag.... Eh? Sorry. Higher population, more lag (generally). I understand that you are implying that the spare hardware should be used to upgrade the remaining servers, but I doubt you'll get a double performance boost to accomodate.|
Originally Posted by Smoothjedi
What I believe needs to happen is server consolidation. Cut both lists in half, pool the server resources so every server has 4+ dots at a time with the maximum per server around 10. This would solve so many problems with people unable to find groups. Plus, maybe we then we can run an ITF or Incarnate trial without massive lag affecting everyone.
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As for your follow up post on what can cause more stress on the server than population, I believe that people running Ultra Mode, or maybe playing in Praetoria, has a greater effect than someone not. I don't think the fact Union is regularly at 2 dots now is due solely to an increase in population. Additionally, Toons standing around chatting aren't causing much stress compared to toons firing off powers consistantly. And if they are firing them off in zone, even more stress.
Added to that the issues with Toon/SG name conflicts between the merged Servers and you have an Admin and PR nightmare to add onto the technical one.
TY Liz, Looking forward to the end of summer then.
I'm beginning to wonder why I stuck my head into this thread again, but this post caught my attention because it is talking about something other than what it quoted.
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The producer's letter is talking about accounts, NOT global names. Reasons for less EU/NA account conflicts is that the most likely cause of duplicate account names is a EU player having the same account name on both the NA and EU servers.|
Originally Posted by Shadow_Kitty
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The only way to get a collision is to have one NA player with the global @MyGlobal and one EU player with the global @MyGlobal. Only then will there be a collision about the global @MyGlobal. And that means that there will be exactly the same number of affected players in EU as there is in NA. |
Global names are a separate entity from what you quoted. I suggest that if you want to rant about something, that you might want to get your facts in order.
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Actually, the context of the letter is about "ingame identities":|
Originally Posted by Snow Globe
The producer's letter is talking about accounts, NOT global names. Reasons for less EU/NA account conflicts is that the most likely cause of duplicate account names is a EU player having the same account name on both the NA and EU servers.
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Originally Posted by Producer's letter, again
We know that your online and in-game identities are important. City of Heroes is at its heart a game about who you are, not just what you do. Weve all spent the last 7 years forming friendships, alliances, and rivalries in City of Heroes, and we know that anything that can impact your in-game identity can be a reason for concern. At the same time, to make this server list change happen, we need to ensure your identity remains unique from other players. We did a lot of data mining and found that pre-pending the names of EU accounts affected the fewest active players (the difference is hundreds vs thousands).
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I get the impression that they are talking names in general, both account names and global names, but mainly the in-game identity, i.e. the global name.
If they were talking about account names only, why confuse things about in-game identities and global names? And if that is the case, didn't they read the feedback of this thread? People are not that worried about the account name; they're worried about their globals.
No, I think they're talking mainly about global names in that paragraph and the next one. If they're not, they're welcome to come into this thread again and correct me (and while they're at it, provide some answers to the unanswered questions).
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Originally Posted by Snow Globe
I suggest that if you want to rant about something, that you might want to get your facts in order.
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Still @Shadow Kitty
"I became Archvillain before Statesman nerfed himself!"
I join Kitty on this, although i wonder if they ever give another update here.
Support suggested to post on the boards for the question:
After the list-merge, can people transfer characters from US to EU servers or visa versa within their account?
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That's how I read it too. But I do think the Producer's letter has muddied the water a little and made things unclear. Some clarification from the powers that be would be much appreciated. |
Originally Posted by Snow Globe
The producer's letter is talking about accounts, NOT global names. Reasons for less EU/NA account conflicts is that the most likely cause of duplicate account names is a EU player having the same account name on both the NA and EU servers.
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As it stands, I don't think anyones' bothered about their account name being changed (are they? Really?), it's the global rename that has folks concerned.
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I presume from all of the information I'm hearing your account will be able to access and play on ANY of the servers.
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Originally Posted by SinergyX_NA
I join Kitty on this, although i wonder if they ever give another update here.
Support suggested to post on the boards for the question: After the list-merge, can people transfer characters from US to EU servers or visa versa within their account? |
On Justice
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That isnt the question, i know i can create new toons on any given servers.|
Originally Posted by Desi_Nova
I presume from all of the information I'm hearing your account will be able to access and play on ANY of the servers.
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Example: If i have a toon on Defiant, can i transfer this one to Freedom?
Current EU-US transfers are not allowed as it involve account-transfer (but it was possible back in the old days), but i want to know if this is possible within a account after the merge.
Apologies for the delay in an update everyone. Issue 20 has been taking up the bulk of our time lately.
We understand that these solutions are not ideal for everyone. We understand that the European Community in some cases may feel slighted by our decisions of how to handle these inevitable collisions. We do sincerely apologize to anyone who has negative feelings regarding these changes and ask for you to give us the opportunity to show you why Global Server Access is worth the inconvenience.
Our number one concern in regards to these changes is the safety and integrity of your character data and the overall integrity of the game services provided by these interwoven systems. None of these decisions were easy to make and all were made with the absolute best interests of the Community at heart.
To review and update some questions being asked in this thread:
- We've identified a method that should resolve the issue of trial accounts causing collision for full accounts Global Names. More information will be coming soon.
- The method for dealing with Global Name Collisions has not changed. If there is a collision with another active, non trial account, your global name will still be changed to the last character you logged out of. We've spent a lot of time investigating alternative solutions and still came to the conclusion that this was the safest (in regards to data) and most easily understandable method. Our apologies to anyone who may lose a Global name that they've had for an extended period of time, however in this case we have to make the decision that has the lowest level of risk attached to it.
- There's been a lot of questions regarding Global Channels and collisions. The solution we've devised is similar in effect to the solution for account name collisions. All EU server Global channels with collisions will be pre-pended with the prefix EU, so a channel would be renamed to being "EU <channel name>". You will not need to rejoin these channels as the renaming process should be a seamless transition. The original solution was to simply drop these channels, which we felt would be much more jarring and would do far more damage to the community than the now agreed upon solution.
We'll be sharing much more information about the "when" and "how" in the coming days. Global Server Access is coming and we're looking forward to the Community building opportunities that it will bring!
Andy Belford
Community Manager
Paragon Studios
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The fact that that was considered by the producers to be a good solution to go with in the first place and that it needed people on the community staff to point this out is jarring to say the least.
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Originally Posted by Zwillinger
The original solution was to simply drop these channels, which we felt would be much more jarring and would do far more damage to the community than the now agreed upon solution.
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A lot of options are considered in the development process. The great thing about the development environment here at Paragon is that production is willing to listen to feedback from all departments, including Community.
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Originally Posted by Generalissimo
The fact that that was considered by the producers to be a good solution to go with in the first place and that it needed people on the community staff to point this out is jarring to say the least.
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Andy Belford
Community Manager
Paragon Studios
My guess is that the thought was "we avoid a lot of trouble, and it wasn't that long ago people were having to rebuild channels when they hit a cap".
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I notice you left out the emphasis that Second Measure had:|
Originally Posted by Shadow_Kitty
Emphasis mine. The next paragraph also speaks about global names.
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Originally Posted by Second Measure
We know that your online and in-game identities are important. City of Heroes is at its heart a game about who you are, not just what you do. We’ve all spent the last 7 years forming friendships, alliances, and rivalries in City of Heroes, and we know that anything that can impact your in-game identity can be a reason for concern. At the same time, to make this server list change happen, we need to ensure your identity remains unique from other players. We did a lot of data mining and found that pre-pending the names of EU accounts affected the fewest active players (the difference is hundreds vs thousands).
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Originally Posted by Shadow_Kitty
I get the impression that they are talking names in general, both account names and global names, but mainly the in-game identity, i.e. the global name.
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Originally Posted by Second Measure
I know the feeling of seeing someone else with your name. A year ago I transferred my original main character from Victory to Virtue. I lost the character name matching my global name in the transfer. A few months ago, I happened to log into Atlas Park standing next to the character who had my old name (what are the odds?). He actually offered to give up the character name when I mentioned it to him, but I didn’t want to do that to someone else.
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Originally Posted by Shadow_Kitty
If they were talking about account names only, why confuse things about in-game identities and global names? And if that is the case, didn't they read the feedback of this thread? People are not that worried about the account name; they're worried about their globals.
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Originally Posted by Second Measure
We have been listening to your feedback carefully here at Paragon Studios, and Zwillinger, Avatea, and Beastyle have done a fantastic job of representing your concerns. We loved the suggestion to let people reactivate old accounts to reduce the number of shared names between regions. We’ll definitely make that happen for you shortly before we change over to the Global Server List.
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Originally Posted by Shadow_Kitty
No, I think they're talking mainly about global names in that paragraph and the next one. If they're not, they're welcome to come into this thread again and correct me (and while they're at it, provide some answers to the unanswered questions).
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Oh, and here is the rest of Second Measure's post about the complexities involved:
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Originally Posted by Second Measure
We want the process by which this happens to be very clear for everyone. We considered a number of solutions to the identity collision challenges presented by Global Server Access, and many of these options were quite complex and potentially confusing. Because we have to communicate the process to a number of players in multiple languages, and make it clear enough so everyone knows exactly what to expect, we chose the most direct route we could while disrupting the fewest players. At the same time, a more widespread solution such as pre-pending every European player’s global name, even if there was no collision, may have been clearer, but was too intrusive. To be clear, this solution affects no character names and affects a very small number of players’ account and global names.
Complex solutions introduce risk, as well, and we want to increase the chances that the necessary disruption to your play experience will happen one time, and not be drawn out or risk your game data. |
I can guess at the thought process though:
- How many global account names collide? This is a 1:1 check.
- How many of those collisions stem from the NA->EU transfers? This one is probably the cause of high number of collisions. This reduces the number of EU players affected. The redress should be allow to rename account names, but I personally don't trust their web staff to get it right given the botched "security" recently implemented.
- How many of those server transfer collisions also have the same global name for both NA and EU servers? This is being addressed by the global name change tokens given to those affected and the reactivation of the other accounts so you could change the global names of the accounts you hold, or others have held prior to the NA->EU server transfers.
Edit:
The global name is likely stored with the character, given the difference in the amount of characters that can be made, doing it the way they are would have the least potential cause of damage. Up to 396 characters per account for NA players, and 144 characters per account for EU players.
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Emphasis mine, but this wasn't what was originally cited...|
Originally Posted by Zwillinger
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Originally Posted by Avatea
7- What about global handle in game? Will those be affected by name collisions?
Yes indeed. All European players with a global chat handle name collision will have their global handle changed to the character they log in with. If the global handle still has a collision after the initial change, letters will continue to be dropped from the end of the name until no collision is present. |
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Sorry to interrupt, my english may be kind of rusty but when I read the FAQ I understood it was the character I logged in.|
Originally Posted by Zwillinger
[*]The method for dealing with Global Name Collisions has not changed. If there is a collision with another active, non trial account, your global name will still be changed to the last character you logged out of. We've spent a lot of time investigating alternative solutions and still came to the conclusion that this was the safest (in regards to data) and most easily understandable method.
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There's been a change or I became totaly bad in english ?
edit: yup, what the guy me above said, except I would have put the previous sentence in bold orange in his second quote.
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Thing is that globals and account names are completely separate entities. I won't tell you what my account name is, but it's not Shadow_Kitty. So a player with non-colliding account name may still have a colliding global. A player with colliding account name may be well clear of global collision. |
Originally Posted by Snow Globe
At any rate, you are focused on one aspect of this change: Global names. Taking this only into account, I would agree that there would likely be a 1:1 collision rate. However it isn't JUST global names, it also involves accounts.
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There will be a 1:1 collision rate on colliding account names, and another set of 1:1 collision rate on colliding global names. On some of the affected accounts, only account names will collide. On others, only global names will collide. On some, both global names and account names will collide. But these are two sets of collisions that only partially overlap.
From a database perspective, storing the global name in the character record borders on stupidity. It just invites trouble with redundancy and database integrity problems. In a normalized database, it should be stored on the account record.
Still @Shadow Kitty
"I became Archvillain before Statesman nerfed himself!"
wow didnt know it changed so if we do have a conflict our last toons name will become our global..better make sure i pick a toon just in case xd
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Will there be a way of renaming a global channel? I mean, if we don't like the prospect of the channel "W" becoming "EU W", for instance?
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Originally Posted by Zwillinger
There's been a lot of questions regarding Global Channels and collisions. The solution we've devised is similar in effect to the solution for account name collisions. All EU server Global channels with collisions will be pre-pended with the prefix EU, so a channel would be renamed to being "EU <channel name>". You will not need to rejoin these channels as the renaming process should be a seamless transition.
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Still @Shadow Kitty
"I became Archvillain before Statesman nerfed himself!"
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You're 100% correct that it wasn't updated properly. The original plan actually had information that was incorrectly communicated. That is an oversight which we are rectifying immediately. |
Originally Posted by Master Zaprobo
So, there have been changes... can you perhaps outline the full plan as it now stands (and update the initial post) because it seems things are changing faster there about this process than you are able to communicate to us.
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Thank you for bringing that to my attention and my apologies for any confusion that may be causing.
Andy Belford
Community Manager
Paragon Studios
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I'll check into this. I don't know if it's possible to rename a global channel via an ingame command or not. If it is, and it requires development time to implement, it's unlikely it would make it in time for Global Server Access.
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Originally Posted by Shadow_Kitty
Will there be a way of renaming a global channel? I mean, if we don't like the prospect of the channel "W" becoming "EU W", for instance?
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Andy Belford
Community Manager
Paragon Studios
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BTW, if you can add player renames of global channels (and SGs) to the wishlist...it would be a good thing. Just saying.
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Originally Posted by Zwillinger
I'll check into this. I don't know if it's possible to rename a global channel via an ingame command or not. If it is, and it requires development time to implement, it's unlikely it would make it in time for Global Server Access.
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What I'm gathering from what the red names are saying, the majority of conflicts are from that overlap.|
Originally Posted by Shadow_Kitty
Thing is that globals and account names are completely separate entities. I won't tell you what my account name is, but it's not Shadow_Kitty. So a player with non-colliding account name may still have a colliding global. A player with colliding account name may be well clear of global collision.
There will be a 1:1 collision rate on colliding account names, and another set of 1:1 collision rate on colliding global names. On some of the affected accounts, only account names will collide. On others, only global names will collide. On some, both global names and account names will collide. But these are two sets of collisions that only partially overlap. |
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Originally Posted by Shadow_Kitty
From a database perspective, storing the global name in the character record borders on stupidity. It just invites trouble with redundancy and database integrity problems. In a normalized database, it should be stored on the account record.
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Originally Posted by Zwillinger
I'll check into this. I don't know if it's possible to rename a global channel via an ingame command or not. If it is, and it requires development time to implement, it's unlikely it would make it in time for Global Server Access.
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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
they do not indicate how populated a server is at that given time.
More dots is bad.