Forbin_Project
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Posts
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Level-Packing occurs when you take several characters who are all the same level and package them in the same container.
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Quote:Agge I speak English and I can't understand what the hell some of the people are saying on the English speaking servers. And for the record I'm not referring to the slang our cherished Brit and Aussie brothers and sisters use.Originally Posted by Aggelakis
All of the text on those servers (except basic UI) is in the other language. Thus I don't suggest them to people without caveat, especially someone whose OP says something against the PL mindset, which may indicate the wish to READ the content - which you cannot do on Vig or Zuk without knowing that language.
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Am I the only person that saw the title and thought the OP was going to be asking about trial accounts?
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Quote:Originally Posted by Yogurt
So it means we're getting a Name Purge??? Now your getting the hang of this.
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Quote:If it makes you feel any betterOriginally Posted by Exodus_V
Scott Pilgrim and Ramona
Austin Powers and Ms. Kensington...ok i just threw out another synthoid/android into the discussion so im guessing i need help!
Doctor Who and the TARDIS
John Connor and Cameron Phillips
But why not Austin Powers and Felicity Shagwell. -
Quote:You heard it here first from Zwillinger!Originally Posted by Zwillinger
So in summary, we're always working on something, however it could be anything, as long as it doesn't negatively effect everything.
We're getting a MOON ZONE!
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Quote:Looks more like someone is grasping at straws to me.Originally Posted by TrueGentleman
This is what "noncustomers" referred to:
Others have taken this line in this thread, and it was an oversimplification then too.
Edit:
Nevermind I retract my previous statment above. You were right TrueGentleman.Quote:Originally Posted by Emberly
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. -
Boy you are gonna hate the new Vet Reward because it lets players customize the color of their names.
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Quote:Why would people who have never been customers be upset over not losing the names to characters they never made in the first place.Originally Posted by TrueGentleman
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.
The only people that have a stake in this issue are the ones that created an account and made characters.
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Quote: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.Originally Posted by TrueGentleman
Calling a former subscriber a noncustomer implies they're persona non grata because their subscriptions have lapsed.
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Here's the official redname response.
Quote:Originally Posted by Zwillinger
We are following this thread and taking your feedback into account all.
However, to be perfectly clear: We are not currently planning another name purge in the near future. There are reasons for this, which I am not at liberty to discuss at the moment. -
Quote: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.Originally Posted by Ironblade
But it's not the trivial matter you're claiming, either. Or, at least, IT MAY NOT BE. You don't actually know. You're basing your entire argument on the ABSENCE of evidence/information. This is faulty reasoning. You make various assumptions about what people would do and how they would react. Since the scenario you describe to support your point did not occur, you proceed to draw conclusions.
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Quote:We have lots of flexibility. 15 servers of it in fact.Originally Posted by bjooks
Wanting to give players more flexibility to create the characters they want with the names they want is also a valid reason. It just happens to be one you don't like.
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Underdog and Sweet Polly Purebred
Rocky and Bullwinkle
Boris and Natasha
Pixie and Dixie
Mac and Tosh (goofy gophers)
Peppy Le Pew and that poor cat -
Quote:There are games out there that will allow you to do what you want and they won't cost you a penny to play. Here's it's first come first served.Originally Posted by bjooks
It's not coming up with new, original names that's my problem. When I'm creating a character from scratch, the unique name policy can sometimes be a hindrance, but usually not a deal-breaker. But the problem is that I (and many others, I'd imagine) don't just play new characters we created after this game launched. I also have several toons based on old Marvel PnP RPG characters I used to play back in the day, decades-old characters with established identities and names.
It's an incredibly amazing experience to see one of your own personal characters, developed back in your high school days, become a playable character in a video game! But when that name is unavailable, is it really the same character? Honestly, sometimes not, because of the ways that names shape identity. These types of characters are much trickier to rename due to their established histories. The reason my home server is Triumph isn't really because I like the solitude there, although that's nice, but it's first and foremost because it was the best place for my characters to have their proper names. (That, and I don't like to wear pants.)
I very much want the ability to chose whatever name I want on the server I want. It's not that I'm malicious and want to steal your names, nor because I'm less creative and can't use a thesaurus. It's because I want to play with my own character concepts from years gone by, characters I already have a vested interest in, characters who are already defined to the point that a new name often makes them a different character.
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Now if the devs are developing cross server teaming that's a valid reason to reconsider the issue. -
Quote:Universal rule: There's always one.Originally Posted by TrueGentleman
You haven't established the rules.
Oh you mean like when they implemented their AE exploit policy.Quote:And if they want to be known as arbitrary jerks, they can just go ahead and implement a complicated new policy and write off potential return business. That's a superb method of simultaneously losing good will and returning customers. Is that from the Jack Emmert playbook?
Or what they did with PvP.
Or the recent global name policy when they merged the server lists.
Welcome to the world of MMO's there is always someone claiming the devs are arbitrary jerks about something and that vast hordes will ragequit or not return if they don't cater to their unreasonable demands. -
Quote:Originally Posted by Exodus_V
Wanda uses her "Hex" pwrs to allow them to produce children...talk about pushing your pwrs to the limits!
Yeah it was her hex powers.
Wanda being in the back of a sleazy bar with a bottle of tequila had nothing to do with it.
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Quote:Translation: It's a good movie, worth seeing once.Originally Posted by GameAddiction
I caught a midnight showing, and I thought it was "meh." I don't hate the movie, but I don't intend to ever see it again. At every level, this movie felt like it was phoned in.
Ryan Reynolds was playing the same character that he plays in every movie that he's in...again. The stoytelling and writing were weak, hackneyed, and full of cheats. And even the CGI special effects were, for the most part, cheap-looking.
If you're planning to see this movie, keep your expectations low. Don't go in expecting something anywhere near the quality of a The Dark Knight, Iron Man, Kill Bill, or even any random episode of Firefly. Honestly, I felt like I was watching a made-for-TV movie on the SyFy Channel. -
Quote:Yeah well Perfect Pain bought a lifetime subscription to a game she claims she hates so she can complain about it on their forums.Originally Posted by Myrdinn
This is quite true. I have a cousin who was in CoH's original beta with me back in the day. His main, post-launch, got up into the mid twenties right before the first publish (when 40 was the max level). Long story short, his account became inactive then.
Recently, he came back... but he had to rename his main toon, as that name had been long taken by someone else. He didn't complain on the forums... just spent two days looking at a name with periods on either side, and went off to another superhero game where he could have 'his' name.
I'm actually in favor of freeing up names that are on inactive accounts... however, I am quite well aware of what that means in relation to those who might want to return.
Morel of the story, There is always an exception to the rule. -
Quote:The company is under no obligation to apply anything retroactively to non paying former customers. If they want to be generous they can send out emails.Originally Posted by TrueGentleman
Since this plan doesn't have any provisions to be applied retroactively, yes.
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Quote:And an even smaller fraction of the playerbase are active American military personel serving in the middle east.Originally Posted by ClawsandEffect
There's a bit of a flaw there.
We are all aware that only a fraction of the playerbase uses the forums at all.
No they aren't. People who view CoH as nothing more than a video game aren't going to be that attached to a character name. After all it's just a video game.Quote:On the other hand, those who view CoH as nothing more than a video game aren't likely to use the forums in the first place, and even less likely to come and complain when they come back after a break and find their names gone. They will more likely just cancel their subscription again and go somewhere else.
No it's not an assumption because we regularly see people with only 1 post coming to the forums with a question/problem about something that happened on their account.Quote:You flaw there is assuming that anyone who has a problem with losing a name will automatically come to the forums to complain, when in actuality, those most likely to lose a name are also the least likely to come to the forums with their complaint. -
Quote:Giving former customers a guarunteed length of time their favorite character names are safe that increases the longer they keep their accounts active would be ignoring them?Originally Posted by TrueGentleman
Because attracting back former customers can be ignored? Honestly, this is not the way subscription or association memberships work in the business world.
You have a strange definition if the word ignore. -
Quote:Pretty sure there were some special events/promotions and release of new issues going on prior to the scripts being run. Can't remember exactly which ones, but they all brought in an influx of returning players.Originally Posted by TrueGentleman
Did they run the script prior to any kind of welcome back promotion? That's a necessary factor in attempting to determine how a name purge could impact attracting former players.
Sorry but your logic fails. Bosses, supervisors, customer service, marketing, IT all get the same paycheck regardless of if they devs run the script or not. They don't get paid extra because the names get freed up or not. No additional resources are spent. No one gets a bonus for each name thats made eligible to be used again.Quote:Evidently you're interested only in the technical aspect of this, not the business nor management ones. (And unless you've seen the script's code and know how Paragon's player database is structured, then you're making assumptions of your own.) But in a real company, a supervisor would have to sign off on this and justify it to their boss, who then would have to coordinate with other departments, such as customer service and sales and marketing departments. And even then, IT is going to have to double-check everything before hitting "run" because this is making a change to the player database, the most valuable piece of software on Paragon's servers (yes, more vaulable than the game engine). Database management is, by necessity, a conservative and slow-moving enterprise. -
That's an interesting idea Tony.
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Quote:Please take note that I was responding directly to what Claws said and not you.Originally Posted by TrueGentleman
No, I've been saying that it's a potential factor
That's pretty much what the devs did when they ran the script the last two times. If I recall correctly we had at least a months notice it was going to happen, and we were told exactly what was going to happen. The devs aren't going to tell anyone what names get freed up because that would cause a lot of drama on the forums between players with active accounts wanting the same name.Quote:Here's an experiment Paragon could run, if they had the time, staff, and money: A) Announce a reactivation weekend and a name purge in advance
B) Run the name-purge script beforehand to allow current subscribers to pick from the results
C) Some period of time after the reactivation weekend, tally how many returning players' accounts were re-subscribed out of the total and compare to previous reactivation weekends' results
D) Of the resubscribers, flag those accounts with generic'ed character names and track how long their subscriptions last against the average attrition rate
E) Print out that analysis for marketing to use in their weekly paper airplane dogfight contest
After the script was run the first time they reviewed the data and determined thst the majority of names freed the first time were level 6 and under. So when they ran it the second time they lowered the level limit to 6 and under.
And we are back to the Standard Code Rant.Quote:It's not a question of whether or not players try to make characters with pre-existing names, it's whether that problem is sufficiently important to dedicate limited resources to addressing.
The name freeing script has already been developed and requires no more resources to develop. The devs can run it any time they choose.
No it doesn't it is saying, "Better not tell you now."Quote:The Magic 8-Ball says "signs point to no".
The devs aren't going to run the name script any time soon because they are working on something which they can't talk about.Quote:Originally Posted by Zwillinger
However, to be perfectly clear: We are not currently planning another name purge in the near future. There are reasons for this, which I am not at liberty to discuss at the moment.