Lemur Lad

I don't disagree at all that potential Continuing customers (good term), should be thought of. However when I ask myself:

How much service should be provided to someone no longer paying for said service, as opposed to someone who has been paying and will be continuing to pay?

I would say numerically the value would be less than zero, but it shouldn't be the same as someone who is paying.

As I've said above, I wasn't in favor of reimplementing this solely for the sake of people getting the names they want. However now since it's a matter of a service that allows people to shuffle the location of their data, its a matter of keeping the name they have versus losing it to someone who was highly unlikely to ever use it (even if they did continue the service).

The gray area in this is when we're dealing with the additional Name Change service. Added as a feature because it makes sense to do so when dealing with transfers, it also kicks the issue of name "ownership" onto a different level. Instead of it being merely a matter of someone with a name in position A wanting to move to position B, and losing their name to an unlikely user who had it in cold storage, we're dealing with giving people something they don't have now, but want.

I think the argument that most people are making when they try to expand the system (that it takes very little time to get to level 6) is the best reason to keep it just where it is. Takes so little time, that anyone returning wouldn't hardly see it as a loss if the name was gone.

The chances that out there somewhere is JoeGuyUser who is going to return after a year and a half away, specifically to play this sweet alt he left parked in front of Blue Steel, is slim to none. I'm willing to chance pissing off that target demographic if it means someone who pays to move to a new server gets to keep the name on their 45 alt.

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got magicked 50 levels from the level-fairy

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Stop spilling Cartel secrets!! Sheesh next you'll be telling people what happens when you run up to Serafina and enter Up Up Down Down Left Right Left Right B A

>.>
<.<

oops.

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It's still showing special treatment to them. You're right, name purging is a nessecary evil. But at the same time, how is it right for names to still be taken up by accounts that have been inactive for a year, two years, since CoH launch? Compared to all the other MMOs and their inactive account policies out there, inactive accounts here are practically pampered to.

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I left SWG nearly 2 years ago. Not only are all my character names still mine, up until a few months ago, all my buildings were still where I left them. Be careful with aobsolute terms like "all" and check into details before you talk about things in other MMOs.

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It's totally absurd for someone to make a bunch of lv1's for the sole purpose of reserving a name that they may never even use.

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Part of our 15$ monthly subscription fee entitles us to up to 132 characters, doesn't matter when or how or why we make them, we're paying for them.

Paying customers using the game account they pay for is not a crime, so don't criminalize it. I think the only thing absurd here is not only have you managed to find a victimless crime, it's a criminal-less one.

The ONLY issue under debate here is what happens to those accounts after people stop paying, and that's as it should be.

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I do think that anybody that thinks names are scarce is just being unimaginative.


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I don't, never did. However that isn't why they're reinstituting this. They're doing it mainly for the people transferring characters. In almost every case those characters are going to be of sufficient level to have a marked time investment. Whether they're moving to be near friends they made since starting, or because their original server got too crowded or isn't crowded enough, they're doing it, and willing to pay money for it.

In such a case, I don't think anyone with a lowbie that was essentially unplayed, who has been gone over 3 months deserves the name more than someone active, paying, and invested in that name.

Sure, think of the person who had to leave for hardship, but think a little more about the person who is here and supporting the company. At the end of the day, this is about business, and they're running one, and their first priority needs to be with the people who are here.

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Thats just my humble opinion and it is very much on topic.


[/ QUOTE ] None of it has anything to do with the name change policy. Even as an example of whatever it is addle pated point you're trying to make.

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So, I wonder why you people came to the conclusion of making level 6 the limit. I hope it's concluded out of statistics and not a decision after a game of darts with the numbers 1 to 50 or something

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Try reading the thread. They did make a determination of how to free the maximum # of names with the least disruption.

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IMHO the CoH staff just sits on the fence to much and won't pick a side. They are doing it with loot right now. They are trying to be a lootless/grindless game then turn around and go for loot and grind and just put a different spin on it. I mean just look at all the different economic items they have put in the game lately. I mean MERITS what is that? Why couldn't they just use the stupid invention drop system they put in eight weeks before??? /BOGGLE

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You say potato, I say rutabega. This has about as much to do with the topic as what my boxers look like.

I'm gonna take a stab at addressing the rant anyway.
They made the game largely lootless at the start because they felt that it wasn't essential to the core of the game. They focused on what they could do well, and got it working right. Then they spend their time adding and refining a system that learned from most of the mistakes of other systems, and avoided them. There aren't different economic systems being added, just more fully realizing the system that's been here all along. Changing influence from something superfluous into an actual medium of exchange. It's an added layer of complexity in a game a lot of people complained lacked depth. It's nice but not esential.

Merits have nothing to do with economy, because there is no exchange. They're a personal yardstick of accomplishment. They're specific to the new content so that people participate in the new content, and don't just bring in their rewards from before. Mor than all that, they're a tool for personal choice. I can do any of the related activities, and get Merit. I can do my favorites. And then I have the CHOICE of what I want to be rewarded with. No earning Badge X to unlock costume part Y this time, I can do what I like and get what I want, and I'm not forced to grind for a lot of extraneous time hoping for the exact random drop I want, which is a problem with the regular Invention system.

Merit is similar but piggybacked on top of the existing system so that I don't have to sacrifice one for the other. I can work and earn toward my IO builds, and still get my new shinies from the RWZ. It is in itself a true reward system, the best one they've made so far. It's yet another layer of complexity, that's there for the people that want it.

That's all I have to say about that. Offtopic discussion over on my end. Sorry for the derail... but he started it.

Thankfully we haven't had any major disasters in the last 90days, however I'm nearly certain if there were one, the company would at least consider doing something similar to what SWG did, which was shut off ingame maintenance decay after Katrina. In this case they could suspend the policy long enough for people affected by a disaster to get back on their feet.

People getting deployed are specifically told to make sure everything is in order before they leave. Since I thought a military exemption was part of the policy last time, and since we haven't been told that has changed, I'd guess it's still there.

Other than that, I'd have to say it falls under caveat emptor. It may be yucky, but this gets us back into the realm of just how much service should a company be expected to provide to people who are no longer paying for a service?

Also, as a final clarification, the term "yanking the names" paints an inaccurate picture. The names are unreserved. That means first come, first served, and if the person who had the name comes back before anyone claims it, it's still their's. It's not like the company will be posting a list of names that have been made unreserved.

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Well the way I figure it is, if you get a really cool name that many other people want wouldnt you at least get it to six?

[/ QUOTE ] If I wasn't sure what powers/costume I wanted to go with it, no. Or if I wasn't in the mood to kill 100 to get Isolator. If it's a cool name, then that means for me, it's about being prepped and ready to go to 50, not 6.

It's not like I'm thinking to myself, I'd better get this cool name up to level 10 so it won't get poached after I leave...

The City Scoop is looking for volunteers to write about either event. We'd love to have a story covering them, with quotes, shout outs, pictures, and maybe even tawdry stories of debauchery (if such ends up happening, *nudge nudge*)

What we'd love:
Someone who can write
Someone with a camera
They may or may not be the same person, doesn't really matter, if you're willing to work together.

Note: No one's real name or image will be used for these stories without your permission (unless you happen to be in the background of a picture, sometimes that's unavoidable). Whoever volunteers will be sure to only snap pics of people who are willing victims.

Please contact me, Marcian_Tobay, or Hertz, and we will sort out who is covering what and where and when and who.

This sounds like so much fun, I wish I could go.

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Much as I've argued that bringing this policy back wasn't needed,

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And as you may recall, I was often right there with you arguing it wasn't needed... at the time. However because of the implementation of the character transfer and rename system there's a demonstrable "need" being generated by the fact that these people will be paying for a service, and should expect the maximum chance at satisfaction (defined as getting the character with the name they want on the server they want, if possible).

So yeah, I'm pleased as punch to see this.

Ex Libris, that was a great follow up answer above. Learning that trials are in a different pool puts a new spin on things. Is it possible or likely that those names will be made unreserved as well? If you made it clear that was happening, it could save a lot of potential complaints when the service goes live.

Thank you Rose, that makes me feel better.
I'd just like to say that if there are any future problems, please consider asking about what happened, instead of jumping on us like there is sinister intent. I think it will work better for all of us.

Lord, hyperbole strikes again. There's really no realistic way me expressing my personal opinion and making it clear that it is such and has no bearing on the case at hand can be construed as favoritsm in any realistic sense.

Don't scold me for standing up for myself and this project when someone doesn't follow the rules and then complains they're being cheated, when none of it is true.

I was all in favor of going out of my way to make sure any oversight we made would have been corrected. I've spent nearly an hour today checking into the matter and trying to solve Rose's problem. Then, when it's been shown more than once that the problem lays with Rose and not us, all we're met with is further abuse. At that point, no one should have to tolerate that, and people who decide to treat anyone that way shouldn't be rewarded.

ETA- Rose decided to make it very personal, so my personal opinion became part of my response. Regardless of that, I thought I made it clear it was my own opinion, and even then I didn't say it in a confrontational way. Maybe I shouldn't have said that, but there's a hell of a lot more things that shouldn't have been said coming from the other side of the fence.

Just got this reply from Mantid:
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FYI, I pull the next two weeks of events off the calendar, so that's why there's an 8/5 event listed.

Her event isn't on the calendar as far as I see. She must have missed the disclaimer that's been in every issue of the scoop since Issue 4:

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Make sure to list your event threads in the forum calendar to be listed in the Scoop!

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So tell me again, exactly whose shortcomings are we talking about here.

Maybe if you weren't so consistent in trying to cause problems instead of solving them, we wouldn't have to go back and forth when it comes to things you say and do.

Just to close out this issue, since my other replies got nuked when _Rose's_ abusive posts were modded:

While the people who put it together weren't around early on a Sarurday morning, I did some looking and some poking around, and it looks like:

When they put up a list of events in the Scoop, they go by the event calendar. If someone didn't flag their thread for the event calendar, it probably got missed. As of this morning, Even though Rose has a thread for the event in the Event forum, it wasn't flagged to show up on the calendar for the date I saw. Even still, there is plenty of time to get it into next week's Scoop. Whether it happens or not I can't say. Personally, just because of the tone of the one remaining reply, not to mention the ones that had to be deleted for being total flamebait, I would vote no. It's probably a good thing that it isn't up to me what goes in that section.

End of story I think.

Please go find links to events that we put up more than a week before they happened. I want a list.

Your event is Sat 8/4, not Sat 7/28. There's no good reason it would have been in this week's Scoop.

Edit: Ahh I see we do have 1 event for 8/5 in there. Not entirely sure why. Still my point stands, you can probably expect to see it in next week's issue. Well, you can expect it as long as you can the attitude.

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Absolutely! Now if only we could find somebody with good writing skills who is as wise about Blasters and Stalkers...

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and corruptors, and defenders, and...

Yeah that's a hint folks. Please send me names of people you think would be good, or volunteer if you're interested. I'd love to close out the summer series in good shape. All our guest writers have done great so far.

Woohoo! Week off! I's goin fight me some Riktis!!!

*scampers out of the office*

I just want to say Tundara, I think that's a very solid and effective critique. Even if it's not my own piece, I can get something from it, since I try to go with that incharacter route from time to time. Thanks.

Something everyone needs to keep in mind when we're talking about this. The piece was initiated by the people who organized it. It wasn't our decision to cover it, it was our decision to include it because the people who did it were proud of their accomplishment, and did a nice job on the article.

We've just come off a Hellish week of accusations that we're being too cliqueish and exclusive, and here we have other people advocating that we need to be moreso just because it's the Test Server.

I want good ideas that are well written in the Scoop. Mofeta and Sylph_Knight delivered. We ran it. We made the mistake in not making it clear it was Test only, but I'm not about to discourage someone with the stones to write a good piece from running it just for that.

This article isn't directly related to the topic, but it got me thinking. Looking at this discussion one way shows that gaming skills are helping people in business. Looking at it another way, the demographic of gamers is sliding into the range where the people are succeeding in their careers regardless. There's something to be said for the fact that in almost any job, people make use of a broad range of life skills that go beyond their job description. I think though that the source and application of those outside influences changes.

During and after World War II, american industry and business was very much shaped by the experiences that everyone gained in the war. Just as an example.

So to me this becomes a chicken and egg kind of question. Are businesses seeking out people with game skills, or are people with game skills just making use of them in they way they do business?

I thought we took one season's worth of his moultings and made the T-Shirt, thus technically he IS the T-Shirt.