Name Reservation Changes

If by stories..you mean..using business logic... ok.

Originally Posted by Paladiamors I love you, I Burnt the Toast!

Paragon Studios/NCSoft knows they are under no obligation to hold any names for absentee players. They are voluntarily choosing to do it for the time being.

Which "people?" Frankly, I think "Superman" is a fairly lame name. It's like that practice of putting "XTreme!" in front of things that was popular not long ago (sometimes with more Xs.) Yet he's been popular for a fairly long time despite that.

Your taste != everyone else's. That's true for everyone. That said, I still don't tend to have problems coming up with names. Yes, some are name-names. Or modifier-name (like, Dr. Doom, Green Lantern or, say, Memphis Bill.) Particularly happy with Huntsman's Bane (especially since they're both AT options, one unofficial) of some of my newer names actually...

See my Guides and Tutorials

You want long-term inactive players to be treated better than active players.

You want long-term inactive players to be treated better than active SUBSCRIBERS. That is a good way to lose customers, not gain them.

After being allowed to play FOR NOTHING, if any account is still inactive for 3+ years then they aren't coming back. They've had 4-6 free weekends and over 9 months to play for free. There comes a point where you write off someone as even a potential customer. If you fail to do so you aren't very good at business.

Triumph: White Succubus: 50 Ill/Emp/PF Snow Globe: 50 Ice/FF/Ice Strobe: 50 PB Shi Otomi: 50 Ninja/Ninjistu/GW Stalker My other characters

True. But a current subscriber is much more wlikely to continue offering money than one who's already left and been gone for over three years.

Accusing people of being selfish and unreasonable:
Accusing people of being lazy:
Accusing people of fraudlent activity:
Claiming this is a means of stealing something that never belonged to any player:
This one takes the cake though:
You can't avoid being hypocritical in the same post. Worse, just after you accuse people of demonizing others, you outright call people thieves. You have some nerve to claim that others are demonizing long gone former players after your posts in this thread.

Oh, and if I've painted an unflattering image of you, you only have yourself to blame. These posts are all your own words, not mine.

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I like how you dropped the part where I said that I benefitted from the first name purge.

Given that I got a name I desired after the first purge ("Strobe" was taken on Triumph before the purge), I can say that there was at least one name that was desired and was freed with the name purge. If there is one, then it stands to reason that there will be more, provided they put some proper controls over the purge. Not by level, but by extended inactivity.

Triumph: White Succubus: 50 Ill/Emp/PF Snow Globe: 50 Ice/FF/Ice Strobe: 50 PB Shi Otomi: 50 Ninja/Ninjistu/GW Stalker My other characters

I'm sorry but I'm not seeing how treating absentee players exactly the same as active players, is treating them better.

The naming policy is currently first come first serve and no one currently gets priority access to a name based on the last time they logged in.


As Bill has himself confirmed we've been seeing people return to the game after 3+ years. We even see some of them posting on the forums asking to be updated on all the changes since they left.

And for a company that isn't very good at business because they've refused to free up a handful of names (Yes it is a handful of names compared to the millions of combinations of names that are available) , they've sure been making a lot of money. What was they made on Super Packs? Half a million? I wish I was that bad at business.

Devil's advocate argument. So using your logic it could be argued that a Freemium player who has been playing since Freedom launched and still hasn't spent a dime on the game is more likely to continue not spending anything and therefore forfeits any right to keep the names he/she is using.

Cuz spending/not spending money the core of your argument in this quote.

Except.. ya know.. A Freemium who is logging in...has an active account. Twisting the logic and viewpoint of the opposing person's to vilify them..is a low-ball tactic. No one who is for this has ever said in this thread that active Freemiums who have not spent any money should lose their names...if you wanna point out fallacies as your proof you may wanna stop using fallacious arguments in the process.


If there are people on the forums who were gone for 3+ years... maybe you should nudge them towards this thread to give some credence to your view point...I would love to see someone who left a company for 3+ years declare they had a right to something they abandoned

Originally Posted by Paladiamors I love you, I Burnt the Toast!

They on the other hand are at least playing and more than likely giving teamage to someone or making the game look more populated to the VIP.

All accounts, except the banned ones, were made active when Freedom launched. Trying to claim a persons account isn't active just because they have not logged in after the switch to Freedom is a fallacy.

And yet the name purge looked for accounts that had not been logged into...that were inactive. ACTIVE implies you are doing something with the account...

Please don't get into trifle semantics... this thread is about INACTIVE accounts....people who have not logged into the game for 3+ years. Every account has the ABILITY to be active if the person would take an action (logging in)....which would then nullify their risk of losing a name.

Originally Posted by Paladiamors I love you, I Burnt the Toast!

And yet despite doing that we still see people claiming the servers are dead, they can't find anyone to team with, the servers should be merged, etc.

That's a whole different thread

Trifling semantics is the only thing lefty to argue about on this topic. The devs have already decided they aren't running the script.

...at this time. They didn't say never

Originally Posted by Paladiamors I love you, I Burnt the Toast!

By keeping the current naming policy, the company is saying that they value long absent players more than current players.

You are repeating yourself. I doubt that anyone in this thread is unaware of the current naming policy. What people are saying is that the current naming policy needs to be revisited and updated for the new reality that more players aren't coming back to the game.

Actually Bill didn't say people are coming back after 3+ years. He only said some absent players are returning. He also didn't say how long these players come back for.

Complete non-sequitur.
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I completely agree with these two.


No, if they fail to log in for another 3 months after the first email, they should be given notice that they have 90 days to log in or have the names freed. If the email is dead, free the name immediately.

Almost all accounts are old enough to have a global name. The first script was run when people have global names. After 2 automated attempts to convince players to come back (one at 1-2 years, one 90 days after the first attempt), then the names should be freed up. If the email is dead, free the name immediately.

Triumph: White Succubus: 50 Ill/Emp/PF Snow Globe: 50 Ice/FF/Ice Strobe: 50 PB Shi Otomi: 50 Ninja/Ninjistu/GW Stalker My other characters

Worded that way I'm still not sure I agree with you but I'll concede I'm willing to give it more thought.


So is everyone else participating in this thread.



You are right he didn't say it but he implied it, also I notice you are trying to ignore the fact that we have had posts made on the forums by returning players admitting they've been absent 3+ years and looking for info about all the changes in the game.

And I didn't say they said "never".

Saying something twice doesn't make it true.
Next time maybe go for three, it might summon up some validity Beetlejuice-style.

I want all customers treated equally well, whether currently subscribed or not.


We've had long absent returnees saying otherwise, demolishing your pretense of omniscience.

Fortunately you're not running this show or the current anniversary party would more likely be a wake.

Because you have no proof whatsoever that any of the returning players have been gone for 3+ years... Even taking one's word for it is not fact (people lie ...especially on the internet since there are no real world repercussions)...the only people who can factually state otherwise is billing.

And your definition of customer needs some refresher... what we are discussing is known in the business world as not-customers (which is different than non-customer and vastly different than.. customer).

Demonizing people's opinions does not validate your opinion...stating that this suggestion would result in the death of the game (your insinuation) ... if that was not your intention you may want to rephrase your derogatory comments in a more direct manner.

I get it you do not want this suggestion to see the light of day, but you have failed to show a compelling or factual reason why. Your supposition that Extinct Player will return and be upset over their name loss is a guess... Others have suggested multiple avenues in which Paragon could implement this feature...give not-customers a heads up, etc... and yet all you do is demonize people who are for this suggestion and hold out for this mysterious not-customer to return to the game..some time...maybe....

Mandating customer policy in the hopes of long gone not-customers is a failed approach that is not recommended by either the DMAIC or DMADV process of quality control and customer relationship management; none of which advocate usurping benefits of customers for not-customers. This is especially true in a virtual environment where a lack of mitigating factors of travel/time create a fluctuation of customer loyalties. When current customers no longer feel their needs are being met; especially in an online environment where a competitor offers comparable services; it is tantamount that a corporation focuses more so on retention of customers than those of not-customers.

These are basic customer relationship management standards that are Business 101...and the foundation of many successful customer relationship/retention models and theorem.

Put simply: Your current customer is worth way more than the customer who no longer exists (not-customer). Hoping and guessing they may return is fine and dandy, but to dictate business decisions based off these hopes and guesses is business idiocy.

Originally Posted by Paladiamors I love you, I Burnt the Toast!

I just returned after a year off.
I personally know people who played at launch, stopped, then came back to check out Mission Architect, however long a gap that was.

Which is more likely, some people who haven't subscribed in many years coming back to check it out for free, or NOBODY EVER coming back after some arbitrary cutoff date?

The statement "nobody will ever come back after 3+ years" is ridiculous, whatever your personal opinion of the validity of individual forum posts.


I've already pointed out that former customers aren't the same thing as non-customers. Not sure why this is hard for some of y'all to understand.

The patent unreality of an opinion like "nobody who's ever been away three or more years will ever come back" does the "demonizing" for me.

My position, that some really old accounts will return to the game, is vastly more credible than its opposite.

This whole thread is guesswork.

When guessing, I like to err on the side of not alienating potential customers. Especially when the supposed "benefit" would be completely invisible to current subscribers.

Some old accounts will come back.
Gamers being how they are, if their names get jacked they'll be pissed.
There goes that potential ongoing revenue stream.

You know who'll be all giddy that they got one of those freed up names?
NOBODY, because they'll never know it belonged to an old account.

Yeah, that's terrific business acumen.

And as I have pointed out repeatedly NOT-CUSTOMERS are different than CUSTOMERS. Seriously.. it is a staple of the business community. There are three simplified tiers of customers:
Customer
Not-Customer
Non-Customer

This thread is discussing not-customers... If you fail to understand the difference of the two that speaks volumes to your understanding of business. You do not hold not-customers equal to customers...plain and simple. You do not structure your policies around not-customers if the policies are in opposition to your customers. Customer retention; especially in an online service that is not new, and a niche product, is tantamount to business.

A not-customer is: Either a past customers who is no longer a customer or a potential customer who choose to do business with the competition.

Originally Posted by Paladiamors I love you, I Burnt the Toast!

So the people who have watched and claimed the names they've wanted be freed either by player choice or by developer choice (represented in this thread currently by BrandX, Forbin_Project, and Snow Globe) qualify as "NOBODY"? Intriguing ...

Unless the devs publicly post a list of the names that the script freed up, or some indicator that identifies a name as being one that was made available by the purge, we all qualify as nobody under the conditions Goat specified.

However outside those specific conditions, "nobody" doesn't apply.