What I dislike the most

The Purple Man still irks me.

He's a man! And he's Purple! He has mind control powers, but his Purpleness is really what we need to focus on!

Originally Posted by eltonio This is over the top mental slavery.

Technically, yes it is asking for a free rename token. Essentially, it is not. What can you do with a rename token? You can pick and choose from any character on any server at any point in their leveling career and change their name.

Placeholder name, you don't pick a name that you might not like and have a rename token on the side to change it later, you'd get some name like: Generic Hero4vx001 and the option to fix it later.

Even ethically, it's is not asking for a free rename token. It's asking to play the game while you think of a name. Please realize this and don't rationalize it as some petty excuse to get free stuff.


Right. That's why the option would have prohibitive limitations. You'll get an unattractive generic name with a number attached and limited to change it on that character once. The option is *not* a free rename token anymore than the devs letting you to waste hours of in-game time in just the costume creator so you waste less server resources while still paying to play the game. I doubt they have as many costume options just to sucker us into playing dress-up instead of wasting server resources and this isn't a vie to get free stuff nor can it be exploited as such.


What are you talking about? Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles isn't silly or a joke.

I really really hate it when they do that crap.

New on ABC Saturday mornings it's "The Avenger Babies!!!" or some similar crap like "The Teen Avengers!!!"



Shoot me now.

True. But I try to imagine if my new character would, given his or her personality, actually name themselves that way, and 99% of the time the answer is a resounding No. That strategy is good for obtaining a unique name (sometimes), but not necessarily for obtaining a name that fits the look, concept, and personality of the character.

The first time I ever saw the comic book in the 80's I wouldn't touch that book because I assumed the name was stupid and silly. It took a couple of friends to convince me to read a few of their copies and learn how wrong I was.

The worst part is that, IIRC, it's Reed who gives them all names... And he calls himself Mr. Fantastic.

It's attaching a free rename token to a character upon creation. That's exactly what it is on an essential and technical level. There's no functional or technical difference. You're asking for a free rename token on every character. And since if they did it for only new characters people who cry bloody murder, they'd have to do it for all characters.

Which is the same exact thing as typing "Generic Hero4vw001" into the creator, then using a rename token on them later.

The thing is, it's not less server resources for a Dev to Generic you and attach a token to that character than it is for you to just use a token; they work exactly the same way. If the rename tokens are priced based on server resources, attaching them to characters upon creation is only going to cost resources.

I don't think you're trying to get free stuff. I honestly believe you think you're asking for something different. The issue is, you're really not asking for anything different and don't see that.

That's exactly what it is, though. From a technological client-server perspective, that's exactly what's happening. While you're seeing it as a special use case for a rename token, it's still a rename token.

At that point, it's better to argue to get freebie rename tokens. Or suck it up and buy one.

What makes you think the costume creator wastes server resources? And who said anything about spending hours in the costume creator? Once I have my costume made, I save it locally, then log out and go about thinking about names or using a thesaurus and come back with a short list of names and variations of names. One of them always works.

Originally Posted by eltonio This is over the top mental slavery.

Yeah, seriously!

"Hmm let's see... Sue you turned invisible and you're a girl... so you're The Invisible Girl... Johnny, you're a human who can burn like a torch... how about the Human Torch... Ben... Gosh I don't know what the heck kind of thing you are... let's just go with The Thing for now... and me... well, the choice is obvious... I'm Mister Fantastic!"

And then he named their group "The Fantastic Four". He's Mister Fantastic. And The Invisible Girl got a name change when she married Reed... to The Invisible Woman. Because he's so fantastic, that one night with him girls, and you'll be a woman!

Originally Posted by eltonio This is over the top mental slavery.

True, true. It doesn't work for everyone..

Although there are certainly some prefixes, or suffixes that emote a little more personality. Like the difference between Ms. and Madame, and girl and gal. But I think that's a discussion for an entirely different thread.

They would never do that.

Well at least they didn't try to use younger versions of the exact same characters. In that they are the children of the original Avengers.

"The children are James Rogers (Son of Black Widow and Captain America), Henry Pym Jr. (Son of Giant-Man and Wasp), Azari (Son of Black Panther and Storm), and Torunn (Daughter of the absent Thor and Sif)."


I'm specifically referring to when they take a character that didn't start as a super hero until he or she was an adult and then retcon an child/teen version like Superboy.

Such as the Teen Titans cartoon.

Ranks don't work (other than Captain, ad that often sounds pretentious) unless your character is of a military mindset.
titles of nobility don't work unless your character *is* pretentious, or they're legitimately nobility.
And the adjectives and adverbs idea (especially the examples given) honestly make me think of "The Deadly Bulb". A good superhero name should *never* make me think of The Tick.

That seems to be comparing which layer of hell is more annoying.

Right, I guess the sum of those two paragraphs is "No, it's not a new system and perfectly implementable with an extra UI option if not extremely easy to add in just an afternoon."

Although I would have thought you'd figure it out on your own, I'll point it out to you:

I never said it would be less server intensive nor even the same exact amount of resources as current. What I said was the cost attached to buying rename tokens is most likely related to the resources involved with changing the data server-side.

And all that was said for was why I don't ask for the price itself to be cheapened...because I don't know how much impact that is on server resources/token cost.

Although I didn't say it, I implied that the actual consumer cost of the tokens is too high therefore I won't pay for them. That isn't saying the price is too high and therefore should be lowered. That's saying the price is too high *for me* and therefore I won't buy them.

But it's not attaching them to characters upon creations, it's *giving the option* to attach one upon creation. And of course it will cost resources. That's extremely 'duh'. No one said it wouldn't. Doing anything new that isn't specifically aimed at using less resources is most likely using supplementary resources.

My aim is, the extra resources involved with a placeholder name is implemented as a QoL addition for the game just like adding a Tailor option to trainers was a QoL feature added that most likely costs resources per character rewriting their costume data in an open area of the map instead of an inclosed instance.


I see exactly what I'm asking for. You're countering the suggestion, implying it will be exploited, there are ulterior motives behind the suggestion or that it is some sort of new system that requires new tech. And I've countered all of your counters.

It can't be exploited as it's just a rename token, as you've said, attached to a generic'ed name. You're not getting a 'free rename token', so much as you're given the option of naming your character later.

There are no ulterior motives. I've read articles of people playtesting/reviewing the game and many times they comment how long it takes to get through character creation. The game has so many options, it boarders on tedium and even seasoned players ultimately spend over an hour making their characters. The only motive is the option to speed the process up so one can get into the game and play. Certain picks, like Archtype, powersets and origin cannot be put off as they are required before setting foot in the game. Costumes, body types (if the option is purchased), powers within a powerset and names, however, can be changed later. My suggestion is a strict QoL addition to make the process speedier, less tedious and help eliminate some remorse when creating characters so you'll less often need to delete and reroll (another point of tedium eliminated).

And finally, you yourself has explained how there is no new tech or systems involved.

Your only point of contention is that it costs resources, which is something we all know. If you're saying it costs too much resources, then you'd have to do your homework. AFAIK, measures are enabled so that massive renames by hoards of lvl 1 characters won't overload the systems. This is evident when you receive an error attempting to change your name so apparently, the server can deny renames at that point in time if needed.



Why? I was never asking for any freebies, I was asking to play the game sooner.

And I'd sooner just settle with the name I already have. Funny that, the suggested change still won't let me change the name of most of the characters I am unsatisfied with their name but it may lessen the need to rush picking a name on new characters.


Because you've adapted the time required to create a character. Rather than creating a character now, you create one later. You're still spending a time making the character, you just decided to break it up into parts.

What you're saying is, I should take the option of not playing the character I wish to make and instead break their creation into smaller portions. That's fine, but still limiting. What if I don't want to log off and go scouring books, looking through thesauruses, and a variety of other things *not* involving actually playing the game?

And your other option basically amounts to "You want to be impatient? Spend $10"

And you feel this is all reasonable?

In conclusion, I never disagreed with making the rename tokens cheaper. I just disagreed with *me* asking for them to be cheaper just because I think they're too expensive. For me, I'll answer with my wallet and just not buy them. If the tokens are indeed priced too high then eventually they will drop in price. But most likely they will never drop low enough for me to find it's worth the cost...like I said, I practically don't put any value in my characters' visible names. If I'm not simply stuck trying to think of a name because the one I thought of was already taken, I'm probably frustrated/eager to play and level the character and just pick whatever simple hyphen name.

Wolverine? Nightcrawler? Batman? All of those sound more "scary/villain" than "heroic".

Pigfoot!

That would be the stale cheese dip layer.

Now i must admit that i generally don't have difficulty coming up with names to fit my own characters. i don't even change the concepts and backstories to do it either.

Then again my heroes have names like Shadow Projector, Skyclad, Desert Cat, Wyrdling, Doctor Vahzilok, Swamp Witch, and Blitz-Kid. Not a traditional, four-colour-sounding name in the lot.

The problem is, by the time I start making the character, the backstory's just about written itself. Name first then backstory comes to me about as naturally as dessert then main course.

Captain Britain wasn't a captain (at least originally)

Duke Nukem, Chemical King, Moon Knight say hi!

Green Lantern, Red Hood, Spiderman (Spider modifies Man) say hello!


No offense, but it sounds like you don't want any solution other than having the exact name you pre-selected for your character. Well, that's not likely to happen. The devs could probably force us to append our chat handles to our names, but plenty of people don't want that. If you can get the devs to believe a majority of players want this, you might get your way.

Color adjectives and animal/insect/myth adjectives don't count... I specified that's one of the five "standard" superhero naming tropes earlier in the thread. I was speaking specifically about adjectives like "sassy" and "psycho". Also, in what universe is Captain Britain not pretentious? :P

And again, my idea is for a dual naming policy... if you want to have a global-based name, you can, but if you want a name that you know for a fact will be unique on that server, you can go that route as well. Everyone wins.

*Points out that only sounds bad with a literal translationtion since.*

Gatchaman is another name for it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tjuN5Bn-RCo