Free the names!

I'd say you're only partially right. The "First come, first served" law is one that's fair assuming you accept the premise that unique names are the best or only option possible -- but I don't accept that premise. I think it would be equally as fair if everyone got to choose whatever name they wanted (short of using an already trademarked name/copyrighted character). Your mileage may (obviously) vary.

I can see making a case for unique names because it's technically too difficult to implement them (I honestly wouldn't have a clue), and I can understand the argument that visually the names would be unattractive if they went with an "@global" option (without being able to visually turn them off somehow, I'd agree that they would be pretty ugly). But neither of those are definitive arguments against non-unique names, just hurdles to overcome to make it happen.

If you just personally prefer unique names, that's fine, just say so. I'll agree to disagree. But my opinion is equally as valid as yours, regardless of what you think.
Seems like you think your unique and original name makes you one truly special snowflake.

<Looks at your forum name... does a google search of said name...>

Irony makes me smile.

d

Indeed. A number of people did exactly this when the game launched.

I know I have--on Freedom anyway.
I think of a name first, then make the toon.
These threads made me worry, so in response to these sorts of threads I decided to hoard all the good names.

Yeah, that's how I've been seeing it. I get good mileage with this view. (It runs on diesel, so that helps!)

There's other MMOs out there older (or as old) as City of Heroes which got along just fine without ever purging the names of idle characters. It is not a bad omen for them to decide that it's no longer necessary to run the name purge script--if that is their reason.

Frankly, if regular name purges were part of the game's policy, I wouldn't have ever touched City of Heroes. This "glorious" name purge gives me the heebie-jeebies.

Like I said earlier, one of the big defining features of an MMO is its persistent world, including characters. The knowledge that I could lose my character names to someone else just for not being able to play for three months or more would be a major turn-off.

This subject is inherently a selfish one, so yes, it is about him. It is about everyone who has a character in this game. Ironik is no more or less selfish here than Yogurt.

The reason being, there's people here who want the name purge run again--or even regularly--just because they want to take names used by other characters. Many of the arguments supporting a name purge have the subtext of "other people don't matter, I do!"

Ironik is just taking the same tone from an opposing view.

No they don't. They have the subtext of "noncustomers don't matter as much as customers do." Nobody is suggesting taking names from players, because in order to be a player in CoX, you must pay a sub fee. The suggestion is to free up names held in limbo by people who are not players, are not paying a sub fee, and yet inexplicably hold valuable resources* tied up against the possibility they might one day return. The basic premise here is that customers should trump noncustomers. Nobody could take anyone's name or names as long as they chose to maintain his sub.

*if you don't agree names are a valuable resource, then why argue against their release? If you do agree they are a valuable resource, why should they be held by people who do not pay a sub fee?

We have lots of flexibility. 15 servers of it in fact.

And the people on the other side of the discussion aren't doing the exact same thing you say I'm doing? Sounds like the pot calling the kettle black. In either case it's not a valid reason to make any changes to our unique naming feature.

Calling a former subscriber a noncustomer implies they're persona non grata because their subscriptions have lapsed. Such a wrongheaded attitude would result in automatic rejection at a job interview in the circulation or membership department.

Moreover, this presupposes that enough players will quit over not being able to come up with available names to outweigh how many returning players Paragon has determined won't come back without their original character names. It's just a business decision, just as the devs weighed how much they'd save by merging server lists vs. how many EU players would quit because their global names weren't available. Evidently, the devs have decided that running the name-purge script regularly isn't worth it, one way or another.

Ironically, I thought it would be easier to outline the real-world factors in the business decision whether or not to run the name purge script - which we now have official confirmation that they have no immediate plans to do - rather than debate the entirely subjective issue of what makes a "good" superhero name. Maybe after this I'll switch...

There isn't, but then the plan has to include how to promote the policy change so that it won't alienate potentially returning players. While your system is only somewhat complicated, the p.r. angle becomes entangled very quickly. Should there be a press release and follow-up on MMO news sites? Should former players get an automatic e-mail informing them of the general policy or one that includes a countdown until their old account starts shedding names? I'd genuinely like to hear from Black Pebble about Paragon's approach in such cases since I regularly see news items but literally never got e-mails (which I do from other MMOs I've taken a hiatus from).

If the fact is simple, can you provide figures for retention rates and attrition? It's precisely because we don't have all the facts that it's rash to make business decisions that could have long-term effects.

A certain amount of devil's advocacy comes with the territory (marketers are "Satan's little helpers", as Bill Hicks once joked). I've avoided introducing my own stance on whether or not to quit over a name purge since the bigger picture is what counts. In the final sum, whatever that may be, your preferences and mine are only two datapoints.

No it simply means they are not a customer. Any negative connotations you read into it is a personal problem you have to deal with.

Re: unique vs global names (blah@whatever), I haven't weighed in one way or another. For the record, the idea doesn't bother me all that much, as long as the only place it appears is in chat. Still, ask yourself: what would most people think while running around in game upon seeing another character with the same visible name? This, I think, is the rub most people have issue with, and short of appending the VISUAL names with an ugly @global suffix, there's no way around some people having that reaction.

Re: the comments I've directly quoted: I have no idea how you construe any sense of "specialness" on my part from my earlier comments. I'll say it again - if the name someone wants it taken, try something else.

As for your google-fu, yes I liked the name, yes it was available, so yes I used it. I've never made any assertions that it was somehow unique or original to me. Had it been taken, I'd have gone with something else, easily, without tears. I've made no claims that every, or even ANY of my characters are somehow named "something cool that NO one would ever think of", simply that I have no difficulty following a different path if my first choice has been taken.

More than anything else about this dead-horse argument, the "But I want MY name!.." position baffles me. Newsflash: it's not yours.

Lumping former customers and people who have never been customers into the single term "noncustomer" for the purposes of making an argument of "us vs. them" is strictly for muddying forum debates, not surviving the business world.

Why would people who have never been customers be upset over not losing the names to characters they never made in the first place. The only people that have a stake in this issue are the ones that created an account and made characters.

As part of their justification for the previous purge(s), the devs stated that they realized names in a superhero genre game were of a different animal than names in a fantasy game where you can just faceroll the keyboard and call yourself "Gdxjknmyull the elf wizard"

This is what "noncustomers" referred to:
Others have taken this line in this thread, and it was an oversimplification then too.

Happily I am neither applying for a job nor attempting to survive the business world, whatever that means in the context of me playing internet superhero video games. I don't know what that has to do with me being irritated with the idea that some account that hasn't been subbed since the owner ragequit when ED came out is sitting on a name that I want.

I'm pointing out that as a current, paying customer, I have the strange sense that my desires should have a greater effect on the company's decision to release or not release names than someone who doesn't pay a dime and theoretically might continue not paying a dime whether or not their names are released to the wild.

To me, people who don't pay now are indistinguishable from people that have never paid at all, except that the former customers are actively tying up names that I and other paying customers might like. The idea that we can never ever step on these former customers' toes just in case they up and resub sometime in the future is ridiculous. They're already not subscribed for their own reasons; adding one more isn't going to be the disaster you seem to want it to be.

The Electric-Knight ______ Malfaz _____ Zox'Oculox

@Zethustra

"Now at midnight all the agents and the superhuman crew come out
and round up everyone that knows more than they do"-Dylan

www.pauldamonthomas.com - Original Music

Looks more like someone is grasping at straws to me.

Edit:

Nevermind I retract my previous statment above. You were right TrueGentleman.

And that's a perfectly valid personal position to take. If the name purge issue were a customer service complaint, Zwillinger has handled the official response with professional aplomb (confirming the company is listening to the customer, stating clearly the company's course of action, and then ending the communication without escalation). The OP's petition, however, was made on behalf of "many people", which turns out to be much more varied, both here on the forums and in the wider population of subscribers, former subscribers, and potential subscribers that Paragon has to take into account when making a business decision.

It's been made pretty clear that there are people who don't care how short a time someone has been out of the game, nor care what the reasons might be for that. They believe anyone not actively paying a subscription, no matter how short a time they've been away nor their reasons for being away, is a non-person and doesn't deserve to keep their character data.

Which is pretty much the same thing as "nobody matters as much as me."

True Gentleman has spent a lot of time trying to argue the basic point that companies can't afford to treat former, potentially returning customers the way some people advocating the name purge are doing.

That's a mold I don't fit.

You're setting up the assumption that anyone who doesn't agree that names are a valuable resource which must be "managed" through name purges must also believe that character names are worthless, and therefore have no business objecting to losing them to someone else.

My opinion is that no one should have to give up a character name just because someone else wants it. I do not agree that people should be allowed to take the names of inactive characters, no matter the circumstances keeping the player out of the game.

If people want names already taken by others so badly, then I think there needs to be a different method in managing what is unique, which I've brought up many times before in this thread. It shouldn't have to come down to declaring open season on inactive characters.

Just out of curiosity, I wouldn't mind seeing those folks waiting on names (and while I'm STILL in favor of running the purge, no, again, no problem coming up with names, thanks, so this isn't me) give a little info.

Like I said, out of curiosity.

Namely:
- The name(s) they're looking for on what server, and
- Is it/are they tied to a standard account (don't say "But it's inactive,") an account without a global, or a trial (@Trial 1290834) account. (Obviously don't give the globals.)

Really wondering what the results would be. (The name/server would be for independent verification.)

We do have at least one someone's learned is tied up in a trial, and has been for a while.

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The Electric-Knight ______ Malfaz _____ Zox'Oculox

@Zethustra

"Now at midnight all the agents and the superhuman crew come out
and round up everyone that knows more than they do"-Dylan

www.pauldamonthomas.com - Original Music

As opposed to Mxyzptlk the fifth-dimensional sorcerer? In my own limited experience, I've played a couple of fantasy MMOs with very specific qualities to their IP that actually gave me more trouble with names than anything I've encountered in the comparative freedom of the superhero genre. When literally anything can be a superhero name*, it seems a pity to detract from one's potential fun by getting hung up on a handful of them.


* Off the top of my head, I can think of two that have "Carrot" in them. Try getting away with that in a typical "orcs 'n' dorks" fantasy setting.

Me, for starters. A number of times, I have been out of the game for over three months.

I'm having a hard time thinking of any character concept that could have "Carrot" in the name that isn't silly, regardless of the setting.