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City of Heroes: Character Name Policy Change

StraddenStradden Managing EditorMember CommonPosts: 6,696
in News & Features Discussion

One of the nuisances that always comes with online gaming revolves around names. More often than not, you've got a great name thought up for your character, only to find that someone else has beaten you to it. Not only that, but 9 times out of 10 you feel like whoever has that name hasn't played the game in months. City of Heroes and City of Villains are trying to make life a little less stressful.

Starting 10/24/2005 the City of Heroes® and City of Villains™ character name policy will change. Names for characters under level 35 on game accounts that have been inactive for over 90 days will be changed to unreserved status. This means that those names will become available for new character names if picked by an active player. This policy is being enacted in order to free up character names based on player feedback.

If your game account is inactive for over 90 days and you reactivate your account you will need to log back in to any characters affected by this policy to move them out of unreserved name status. If your old character name has been taken by an active player, the game will prompt you to rename your character. You will be given only one opportunity to rename your character. It is possible that your character name may still be the same if an active player has not chosen to use that character name. Your global handle will not be affected.

All characters in an unreserved name status will be shown in your character selection screen; however, their photo will not be shown, indicating that they are in unreserved name status.

If you do not log into the game with a character in unreserved name status, the character’s name will remain available to any active player until you log that character into the game. Logging into the game with the affected character will change the character’s name status back to reserved.

Any questions about this policy can be directed to support@cityofheroes.com.

For more info on City of Heroes, click here.

Cheers,
Jon Wood
Managing Editor
MMORPG.com

Comments

  • bverjibverji Member UncommonPosts: 722
    about time
  • AnofalyeAnofalye Member, Newbie CommonPosts: 7,433

    The level 35 is a relief!

     

    Assuming that in 98327645917 days, Cryptic devs understand their mistakes and make the game interesting again, I still have my names on 3 toons for sure!  image  And for my others toons, it is NP, I will be unlikely to even remember their names, unless we talk of my tanker Pacini Ro!  image

     

    I would have hate to log back an see my precious names unavailable, since if the game is not interesting anymore, it is certainly not my fault.  I even give them time to make it interesting by trying others games!  image

     

    Well...all this aside...the fact I got my hotmail address easily prolly means that they are safe nonetheless!  image

    - "If I understand you well, you are telling me until next time. " - Ren

  • BTimeBTime Member UncommonPosts: 7
    If they need an arbitrary date, why not 6 months?  Say they have someone that invested a lot of time in game who bailed out due to Issue 5 (or whatever) that may decide to come back after things have shaken out somewhat.  Most likely that would be after 90 days, and if thier characters were voided, don't expect that you'll be garnering any money from that person ever again.
  • CerionCerion Member Posts: 1,005

    Why is it that only this game, of all the games out there, has this issue? You never see players in EQ or SWG complaining because they can't get a name. So now I have to log in with my alts every 90 days just because some people aren't creative enough to think up a name. Brilliant idea.

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  • ZhanghiaZhanghia Member UncommonPosts: 1,312

    Not really, from what I understand they just have to choose another name. If it's not very popular they can just use a different one

  • HarlequinaHarlequina Member Posts: 48
    Personaly, I think this is a fantastic idea. If you're not using the character, and I think that 90 days absence is an excellent indication of this, then you really have no right to hold a monopoly over a certain cool sounding name. Now, I consider myself to be quite imaginative, and I've never had trouble finding cool names for my toons. But sometimes, I wonder if all the abstract/interesting names I think up, which are denied me because they've already been used, are really being used my active players. Free up those names, and give people a break.image

    image

  • AnofalyeAnofalye Member, Newbie CommonPosts: 7,433

    And since it only affect character who are lower than level 35 and didnt log in 90 days...it is not to bad.

     

    For the peoples complaining, it is more work for the devs to do such a thing, especially that they never delete your account (unlike some evil company that delete your toons for real after 90 days, what a shame).  Even my casual friends make it all over 35...so really, the name you lose are names you didnt use so much.  Cryptic can be accused to be *put a nasty word about dimwitness*, but they really are doing their best for their player base that they cheerish much! 

     

    Would I cry if I see Pacino Ro was taken by another tanker?  Not at all, many Italian restaurant to replace Pacini!  image  But a character I play a lot...yeah, I would be pissed to lose my name...Ymne is my name on the Liberty server!  It would be quite unfair if my level 50 lose it name, I mean, the community know me (well, old members of the community since I didnt play for sometimes)...it would serve no purpose to free the name but only confusing everyone if someone would pick it up.  I know that Johny is trying to create a toon on Liberty in CoH every day to steal my name, I know it, it is true!  image

     

    But for a character that you didnt have the time to bring to level 35 and didnt play in 90 days...odds are that not many persons remember you.

     

    However, this show another aspect of the devs that I really dont like.  They listen to the VOCAL player base a LOT and are not afraid to risk to shaft the majority for this evil minority, and they dont necessarily think a lot about each topic...the Hamidon is the best proof!  Seriously, to implement 1 raid item that shaft all non-raiders and that can't make raiders happy...there was HEAVY lack of carefull planning and considerations on this.  I could maybe have understand if they make many raiding stuff...but 1?  1 is to much for me.  1 is to few for any raider.  If you walk on the middle road, the truck hit you! image

    - "If I understand you well, you are telling me until next time. " - Ren

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