Name selling and resets

[Cressan]

Not sure if anyone has brought this up but I think some work needs to be done on name resets. Names that have, as far as I know, been inactive for several years are still unavailable to players, and when they do reset any squads the player owned sometimes still exist and are simply unable to be created again. This is at least what I understand it means when ?squadowner comes up as *UNKNOWN*. On top of this some players have started hording names, even though they only use a few, and selling them. This particularly seems harmful to the game as a whole since it encourages people to search for and horde any popular name they can think of, especially when they can sell them for $20 a piece. This doesn't seem too harmful considering a person can use any combination of letters and numbers as a name, but part of Continuums fun can be building a reputation for yourself, in which case a particular name can be very important, hence why people are willing to drop cash on a decent one. In my opinion name hording, combined with the already poor resetting of names for both squads and players, has depleted a surprising number of handles. Perhaps people don't see this as much of a problem yet but I think it will be. New players will be discouraged if they can't find a name they're fond of, or if they have to pay for one they can find, and we always need new players. Frankly, I think that the fact people have started hording and selling names is evidence itself that some need to be reset.

 

I don't know what to do about hording and selling, though that seems more damaging than the poor frequency of name resets since even when names are reset people can then horde the newly available ones. I'd suggest limiting the number of names per e-mail account but people will simply register more that one account. At least that's better than nothing though. At the very least I think something needs to be done about the resets.

[Samapico]

Names that have, as far as I know, been inactive for several years are still unavailable to players

This is only true if the name has a few thousand hours usage... otherwise it gets reset after a few months

[PoLiX]

Moved to Proper Forum

[Hate The Fake]

just read this on tw forums lol

[Cressan]

Few thousand? I don't even have a thousand on mine and I have been away for several months before. I mean I was glad it was still around when I came back but I'm ?find-ing people that have been off for years and their names are still around. After four or five years I'm not sure it matters how much usage they had but I could maybe understand it in some cases. People that have thousands of hours of playtime may be ingratiated enough with long term players and the established community of the game to deserve that. I don't know if I agree with it, to me it seems like if their gone for that long and it doesn't look like their coming back there's no reason to save their name unless you're sentimental, but I could see the other argument. What about the squad names though? Is it true that when squad owners names are reset the squad name just sort of becomes untouchable and unrenewable? This is just what I've been told but I've come across a lot of squads owned by *UNKNOWN* and that player doesn't exist.

[PoLiX]

*UNKNOWN* = Players still on the Squad and the owner was reset.

 

Few years ago Priit did a huge reset of all the *UNKNOWN* squads, and lots of name horders/traders grabbed em. I grabbed a few and have handed many out over the years to players (IE: why people ask the squads I own and I never know) by request, but many of them just went to the name traders rather than player use.

[Emit]

Names that have, as far as I know, been inactive for several years are still unavailable to players

This is only true if the name has a few thousand hours usage... otherwise it gets reset after a few months

 

Not true. Banner + Ownership of squad + amount of times of login (Let's say 10) with 10 hours usage would pretty much extend the usage to years.

 

*UNKNOWN* = Players still on the Squad and the owner was reset.

 

Few years ago Priit did a huge reset of all the *UNKNOWN* squads, and lots of name horders/traders grabbed em. I grabbed a few and have handed many out over the years to players (IE: why people ask the squads I own and I never know) by request, but many of them just went to the name traders rather than player use.

 

That few years is like 2002...time flies

[Samapico]

name trading squad trading helps ss out alot.

How so? Sure if you buy names for 50$ and the seller eventually donates to servers or something... maybe...

[Hakaku]

The problem with both SubSpace and Continuum is that there is no way to limit the amount of profiles a user can have at a time. A lot of modern games will only store a maximum of five profiles at a time (often per-login, and per-email), which does contribute to limiting the amount of usernames being created. But what really limits account creation in these games is the fact that players have to work for items, levels, and whatnots in order to gain reputation and strength. As a result, people won't switch as often to a new profile in order to regain all their stuff. In Continuum, the only zone partially exploiting the latter would be Hyperspace.

 

In other words, there's no failsafe for account creation as everything in Continuum is pre-configured to jump in and go. So as long as this exists, name trading will persist. And as long as any account has over 300 hours of gameplay (or is banned), then it won't be reset for several years. If it was created early enough when PriitK added the feature, then even names with under 100 hours of usage won't be reset.

 

Squads on the other hand have a problem wherein a single user can create thousands of squadnames and keep them as long as the username still remains existing.

 

And to top the list of problems, it's become increasingly difficult to get in contact with any biller op to even simply retrieve a name that was somehow lost. Placing a ticket and contacting them has proven an impossible task, hence the amount of complaints that are submitted in this very forum. But careless as they are, they lock the threads and try to hide away the problems. Imo, might as well change the top warning to "SSC Contacts: No, you'll never be unbanned and never get your user/squadname back" and it wouldn't make a difference.

 

All in all, if it were possible, I would still advocate for a full name reset.

[kid]

question, how does name trading help subspace?

 

also, a problem with resetting names is that some names have been used in the past and have held power, and resetting such names invites impersonation.

[Hakaku]

also, a problem with resetting names is that some names have been used in the past and have held power, and resetting such names invites impersonation.

If a full name reset were to occur, I would imagine there would be a no-reset list, and it would be both player and zone's responsibility to provide either name+password (for verifiability), or a reason for that name not to be reset. The situation would be no different than if the biller were to go offline tomorrow; should a user hack into the name 'PriitK', than that's the zone's responsibility for failing to remove PriitK's powers when he hasn't been inside his own zone for six years.

A second solution would be to offer early registration in a hierarchical manner, so that names are unlikely to be stolen and zones & al have a chance to make the necessary changes before fully switching to a second playerbase.

[PoLiX]

Over the years there has been lots of talk of limiting names and squads by ip and names and etc. etc. etc.

 

The issue that always comes up is the fear it may hurt the player base more than help it. The other issue is that new players have a hell of a time finding a login. Heck, I know even when I came back in '00 and couldn't remember the pass to my old alias right away, it took me like 10-15 times to find a name. Then ended up changing it cause I hated it, and stuck with this.

 

But I'd hate to see how the common newb now a days has to go about finding an alias.

 

Granted once the scores website is back (if ever... fucking priit), it may assist in planning on this part. As if a name hasn't been logged into in ages, and hasn't ever really scored/played, it'd be obvious it is being horded and could be given to a new player / someone who'll use it / reset. May cause enough headaches for many name traders they'd give up.

 

Note: attractions posts deleted and warned

[Requiem.]

This name took me 25 minutes to think up when I first began in 17th six years ago, and another 5 minutes to decide between a . - or a + at the end of it.

Also, I go through aliases fast, but I usually revert to his one, so I own... 17 names? I would willingly give them up to anyone who wanted them, but the problem is that it would add all of my aliases to that persons alias list, and impersonation would suck.

[No_Remorse]

Let's pretend there was a name reset and you lost your main alias. How would this be beneficial? I think the notion has it's merits but is completely unplausable. We would have these same name horders taking control of nicknames that belong to active members of this "community" and then trying to sell them back to them. Whoever is willing to buy a name on this game has to really take a step back and assess their situation if you ask me. As a result you may end up seeing more negatives than positives.

 

Regarding new players having a hard time finding an alias, that's also crazy. Sure they can't get a top-notch name but tough cookies. This should be expected in any MMO game. Be original and expend some brain cells to think of something that isn't created, it takes me all of about 10 seconds to think up an unknown username. It took me 5 years to get No Remorse and I see no problem with that. It's just a name people, I think you're missing the point here, to have fun and play the game, regardless of having people assume you are some kind of veteran for having an "elite" name. The name is not the game.

[Kaiyin]

I agree there should be a reset. It's ridiculous that some people have all these names. No some people don't want "elite" names, but some people don't want a name with a bunch of numbers to follow or little symbols in their squad name. It's annoying.

[Caster]

The name Eternal, a long with many squads;

Wolf, Falcon, Wasp, Leopard

 

were all stolen from me, is there anything I can do to get them back?

[»Purge]

Read first.

 

Then go here.

 

Usually nothing can be done about stolen names or squads unless you fit the requirements of the first link.

[»jabjabjab]

Here is what I think should happen.

 

We should have a reset yes.. But before doing this i suggest this:

 

(Any Staff on SSC zones should immediately be reserved.)

 

(Any SSC Council members, or any big family contributers such as SSDev or TWDev, etc.)

 

(For those of whome wish to keep their aliases, to contact or email it to a special email which will go through to insert their names on the cleaned player list. Maybe creating a special php page or website page that could only allow 3 name saves per IP address and squad saves, and to be verified of password on the old biller to allow such tickets for the new player list would work too)

 

We need one. Bad. Just saving the names should be before hand and not a free for all when it does happen. Just create something that could allow reservations by player's choice. It's just that simple.

 

Edit: Make sure to put everything when someone reserves, AKA Usage, IP, (Not aliases),Maybe squad with a extended squad owner reserve ticket aswell)

Edited June 25, 2009 by jabjabjab

[Samapico]

I'm thinking about big games... and I mean big... like World of Warcraft... they don't reset aliases do they? But they have what.. millions of people? A full reset would be annoying, really. Just having the possibility to adjust the auto-reset settings, and auto-squad-deleting would do the job.

[»jabjabjab]

Heheh yeah I guess that too.. I just want the name "Jab" damnit :/

[Samapico]

Well, I want the name God... let's reset the whole database because I can't find a single-word name that isn't used yet! boohoohoo

 

I think there's a larger risk of people quitting because they somehow lost their name, than there are people who are gonna join or restart playing because they could register name X.

[»jabjabjab]

Just give the pre-Reserve Ticket timing to like 6 months. That will give users plenty of time to send in their name and password (3) they want to keep (and / or squad)

[No_Remorse]

I think there's a larger risk of people quitting because they somehow lost their name, than there are people who are gonna join or restart playing because they could register name X.

 

Couldn't have said it better myself.

[Hakaku]

There's also a risk of turning off potential players because they try 2 different names which are used, then get locked out of the biller for several hours. No message that they're trying to access someone else's account, just that it's the wrong pass and they can no longer play.

[»jabjabjab]

Meh yall are making way too big of a deal out of this. :/

 

Just follow what I'm saying if this somehow happens, and it will all be fine. 6 months is a long time, long enough to setup a mock (cleaned) biller with reserved names.