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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I'm still sniggering over "FloatingFatMa".
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Originally Posted by Slazenger
So If I get this right, if a name collision occurs and you get a letter chopped off, Bright Spunky would be known as a Bright Spunk
 , or Magnifico The Cocky would be know as Magnifico The **** rofl. Come up with a better way guys come on, this lacks imagination. |
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Two things:
First, I was totally disappointed. I thought when I read the title we could finally pick a character from a long list, pick any server, and just log into it. I don't know why any modern game doesn't do this, other than games with specific PvP servers that want to limit jumping into and out of PvP worlds.
Second, I wouldn't mind having an alternate guild name and being able to check off an option to display <alternate character name> of <guild name>. So if I really wanted to by, say Snowblind but couldn't get the name I could appear as Snowblind of the Obliterators or Enforcer of A.R.M.O.R.
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Nope...|
Originally Posted by Hyperstrike
So if they do it 5-6 years from now, you'll be dancing up and down going "ITOLDYOUSO! ITOLDYOUITOLDYOU!"
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...but in all honesty, do you really think someone won't finally come out with a game equal or better to City of Heroes in that time?
Or that City of Heroes 2 won't be planned by then?
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Another vote for this; I'd promptly transfer several characters to the two English speaking servers and start a 1 person SG on each. As it is, I'm uncertain as to whether or not I should make a character or two I'm thinking of now then transfer them later, or wait until the server list is changed.
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Originally Posted by DumpleBerry
They should provide a brief period of free server transfers.
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Arc #40529 : The Furies of the Earth
You know, on the name thing...
...years ago, when I played Everquest, they did a name wipe. All accounts that had not been logged on for a long period had their names wiped.
The same could be done with CoH before the merge. Accounts with a long inactivity period (say three years for example) could have character names generic(?ed) and globals could be changed too. The devs just need to provide a free rename option to those accounts in case they ever come back.
But honestly...I don't see what the big deal on global names is. But I would love to see a name wipe of inactive accounts. Just about every decent name is already used, and a lot of them no longer even play the game.
Almost forgot:
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I already inferred that already:|
Originally Posted by Maelwys
There are already instances in this thread where players have stated they'd far rather play on the existing four servers than lose their current Global Name. I'm surprised that nobody has so far posted that amalgamating all servers into one global list is a logical prelude to server merges, and started panicking about low/high server populations and the possibility of losing their character names as well further down the road...
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Originally Posted by Snow Globe
On the other hand, thanks NCsoft for demonstrating the complaints that will be heard when/if a server merge happens.
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Personally I hope they don't waste time on account name clashes.|
Originally Posted by StormSurvivor
This has got me wondering just how many EUers are using their own username on an NA trial account. I'm in the same boat, as are quite a few Unionites I spoke to today. I find it a glimmer of funny in this tense atmosphere.
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However, I agree that effort should be taken to minimize global name issues - especially since that is a very visible part of ones identity.
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After some thought, I think that NCSoft could handle account names and global handles separately. Change the account names as planned (possibly excluding trial accounts inactive longer than a certain time), but change global handles based on seniority (veteran badges) with the veteran getting to keep (random for same time?).
By the way if you never logged in with your trial account, it won't have assigned a global handle. It seems every time I log into Test I have a different global handle there because they've done a database wipe since I last logged in (fairly infrequently). There probably also isn't a conflict unless your first character on the trial account is the same name as your EU global.
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They are independent problems so I don't think they are really conflicting. I was trying to imply that the account name change is the one that NCSoft seems to think is the more critical one because it could directly cost them customers that literally couldn't log into their accounts. If we the customers concede that point, it would be a better use of effort to focus attention on ways to alleviate the global name change issues specifically, rather than diffusing attention to both changes.
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Originally Posted by Snow Globe
The thing is that NCsoft's priority problem (account names) and players priority problem (global names) are conflicting.
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I think that's completely irrelevant to the issue of server merges. I think its more likely that CoX goes cross-server than it would shut down servers and collapse the populations. There's no reason to shut down servers: this game is heavily instanced and there's no benefit to collapsing servers that cross-server teaming wouldn't provide equally well. It is, in fact, a superior solution to server merges because servers can maintain their communities while players can cross team with essentially anyone in their global channels. Global channels (and things like friends and supergroup channels before them) have always been the backbone of CoX's commuities anyway, and not shared zones or servers.
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Originally Posted by American_Angel
Nope...
...but in all honesty, do you really think someone won't finally come out with a game equal or better to City of Heroes in that time? Or that City of Heroes 2 won't be planned by then? |
[Guide to Defense] [Scrapper Secondaries Comparison] [Archetype Popularity Analysis]
In one little corner of the universe, there's nothing more irritating than a misfile...
(Please support the best webcomic about a cosmic universal realignment by impaired angelic interference resulting in identity crisis angst. Or I release the pigmy water thieves.)
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My point is, these hypotheticals are irrelevant to the discussion.|
Originally Posted by American_Angel
Nope...
...but in all honesty, do you really think someone won't finally come out with a game equal or better to City of Heroes in that time? Or that City of Heroes 2 won't be planned by then? |
We see enough DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM! here already. We don't need to go borrowing more.
Clicking on the linked image above will take you off the City of Heroes site. However, the guides will be linked back here.
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This, plus putting all trial (and inactive) accounts to the back of the queue probably. Active accounts should get precedence. Though a name purge still has to happen aswell >_>|
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
I don't know if this is possible right now, but if I were in charge of this system I would have instituted a policy whereby new global handles could not be created if they conflicted with either side, and that policy would have been effective as of the first of this month before the merge became known to eliminate that possibility specifically. I wouldn't have initiated the merge before technology to make that restriction possible was created.
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Originally Posted by Master Zaprobo
Plus, is there any chance of an EU/US account merge, where both are on the same NCsoft master account?
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Originally Posted by DumpleBerry
They should provide a brief period of free server transfers.
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THIS.
And granted the old Passport badge to any account.
Does free transfer week come with unified global server access?
pleasepleasepleaseplease
/gignore @username is the best feature of this game. It's also probably the least used feature.
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Originally Posted by Nights_Dawn
Hazy is right
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Has anybody got any problems with the account rename?|
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
They are independent problems so I don't think they are really conflicting. I was trying to imply that the account name change is the one that NCSoft seems to think is the more critical one because it could directly cost them customers that literally couldn't log into their accounts. If we the customers concede that point, it would be a better use of effort to focus attention on ways to alleviate the global name change issues specifically, rather than diffusing attention to both changes.
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Every complaint I've seen (or at least taken note of - it's been a long thread!) so far has been about the global names, not the accounts...
Nobody else "sees" your Account name (for security reasons). I don't see a big deal about the account names being changed. Heck, I wouldn't mind if mine was changed to a random number, as long as I could actually remember it... I guess that's the difference between being emotionally invested in an identifying name, and just using it to log in.
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Someone had, but not me. And there was a pretty nice solution to it as well: add two checkboxes "EU" or "NA" to the login screen that invisibly appends the "EU" to the account name when logging in.|
Originally Posted by Maelwys
Has anybody got any problems with the account rename?
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Originally Posted by Maelwys
Every complaint I've seen (or at least taken note of - it's been a long thread!) so far has been about the global names, not the accounts...
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And since quite a lot of the vocal Americans in this thread says their globals don't matter to them, but us vocal Euros says it does to us, I guess the cheap and lazy but fair solution is to add "_eu" or "_na" to both globals in a conflict and issue a global name change token to both.
Because then the euros who care about their globals would change it and live happily ever after as "@myglobal", while the Americans who would not care (as so often iterated in this thread) would live happily ever after as "@myglobal_na".
...right?
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Yeah, I don't think any of the gripes (except for one poster) are about the account name, only the in game global name.|
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
They are independent problems so I don't think they are really conflicting. I was trying to imply that the account name change is the one that NCSoft seems to think is the more critical one because it could directly cost them customers that literally couldn't log into their accounts. If we the customers concede that point, it would be a better use of effort to focus attention on ways to alleviate the global name change issues specifically, rather than diffusing attention to both changes.
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Originally Posted by Shadow_Kitty
Someone had, but not me. And there was a pretty nice solution to it as well: add two checkboxes "EU" or "NA" to the login screen that invisibly appends the "EU" to the account name when logging in.
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Originally Posted by Shadow_Kitty
And since quite a lot of the vocal Americans in this thread says their globals don't matter to them, but us vocal Euros says it does to us, I guess the cheap and lazy but fair solution is to add "_eu" or "_na" to both globals in a conflict and issue a global name change token to both.
Because then the euros who care about their globals would change it and live happily ever after as "@myglobal", while the Americans who would not care (as so often iterated in this thread) would live happily ever after as "@myglobal_na". |
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Well, I give you that. But at least there's the chance that we decide that tonight is the night when we should go to the movies or have a beer at the pub with the mates, or simply don't bother to login tonight, and you can still do a quick logon in the morning using your laptop on the bus just to change the global. |
Originally Posted by Snow Globe
Fair is in the eye of the beholder. A 7 hour time zone difference means that Euros have an large advantage. A 9 AM server "open" time in the Pacific Time Zone means 4 PM in London. So EU players are coming off of work, while NA players are just going to work.
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And before you go on about how unlikely that is to happen, remember that with the change both globals scheme, you have a chance to steal your global back. You may actually keep it. If your global really matters to you, you can take half a day off and fix it - as can we.
But with the announced scheme, EU players do not have a chance. We will lose it.
Still @Shadow Kitty
"I became Archvillain before Statesman nerfed himself!"
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Originally Posted by Blue Rabbit
Blah, I say! Blah!
Carrotly yours, @Blue Rabbi |
Oy vey!
Mazel Tov, it's a new Global!
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Whilst any solution is likely to upset someone, I'd like to know if there's a proposed solution to the trial account issue. |
Originally Posted by FloatingFatMan
I have 3 accounts on my NC master account. One is this one, two are trial accounts (one is a US one). The inactive US trial account I know for a FACT has the same global name as this one, though the login name is different.
I don't want that inactive US trial account taking my name. What is going to be done about people with mutliple accounts? What is going to be done about inactive accounts? What is going to be done about trial accounts (inactive or active)? |
Many EU players have set up a trial NA account at some point, and it's galling to think that much weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth may be caused by players having created their own name clash with a dormant trial.
IIRC many EU players set up NA trials when NC (pretty much) closed the Brighton offices, as it was thought that the EU servers may have followed and NA trials were a way to 'reserve' your global... Ironic.
Think I'm in that boat myself...
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Another thought about this...
A lot of other players, including myself, have created several accounts, under the same NCsoft master account, to get more slots (EU servers) and don't really need those any more when we get more servers. I think it would be lovely if we got the chance to move our characters from one game account to another, now that we would actually have room for them all on one account (hopefully).
As long as it's the same master account it shouldn't be impossible, just highly unlikely. Of course this would mean less payed accounts, but maybe, maybe they would let us do this, from at least one account, just cause they are soooo heroic and nice?! *looks at devs with big sad puppy eyes*
Yes I know, we can't move between accounts as it is now, and it's probably a big NOO! but can't hurt to ask/beg for it?
No matter what happens with this, yippie for the loads of extra slots I will get! Now I can make even more little lowbies! 
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The announced solution affects the minimum number of player accounts but may affect more than the minimum number of players. |
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Actually, see my post above. The "fair" solution as proposed by Tyger affects more players. Tyger's proposal is a perfectly valid one, but it affects more players. The announced one has an air of unfairness in targeting just one set of players, but it does affect less players which makes the statement above valid. Of course, renaming all the NA accounts rather than the EU accounts affects an equal number of accounts, which is the minimal number.
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Consider a name clash caused by a inactive trial account on the NA side and an (active or temporarily inactive) full account on the EU side.
- renaming the EU side affects 1 player.
- renaming the NA side affects none.
Stripping out trial accounts that have been inactive for a reasonable time period* would ensure the minimum number if players affected.
*I'd have thought most trial conversions happen within a month - but they'll have all relevant data on this.
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My thought.|
Originally Posted by Bionic_Flea
I can understand the frustration. I wouldn't want my global name changed either.
Is there any sort of datamining that would tell us how many names we are talking about? Is it dozens, hundreds, or thousands? Not that it makes much difference if you are the one who has to change, but I think it would be important to know just how many people will be effected. |
Please let us see some real data.
Another thought, in game e-mail conflicted users in advance. It may well be that in some cases the US person isnt all that attached to their global.
Having had my global taken from me once already I can appreciate the frustrations and anger, please everyone keep in mind the best way for a solution to be found that respects everyone and comes the closest to "fair" (considering we all have differing ideals for what fair might be) is to take the emotion out of it.
IMO - I am hoping that trail accounts are already forbidden to match names on either side of the pond and in any case last priority, as per the above stated griefing issues. I am also hoping that some way to merge cross regional names owned by the same person is put in place.
Lastly, this seems like a good time to work on something else I believe the game could use. Longer names in general. Other games exist with much more variability and length of name, this creates more room for people to effectively share or have similar sounding globals. Besides, wouldnt adding the extra ascii be 1337? (leet) a concept well established in game?
Come up with a better way guys come on, this lacks imagination.
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