Username rules updates

FAF development is known to go at breakneck speeds so as soon as a dev might have to deal with dudes with meme-of-the-month names on the forums/client (the two most imperative zones of contributive development), all capacity for FAF development hits a wall and we must wait for the next month

You wouldn’t even have a problem with these usernames if you didn’t have to read a forum thread about it being a problem

Completely disgusting take about “majority of the community just want to play the game” btw

“Majority of the community” doesn’t give a single shit about this whole situation because you guessed it, they just wanna play the game and do not interact with this feature nor moderation nor people doing this at all.

I’m sure the so called silent majority once again only actually factors into decisions when some random faf team has no other basis for their decision so it seems like they actually do something beyond what they just want to do.

i already had more rename ideas, that is a bummer i cant do it anymore now faf is my life

@jip said in Username rules updates:

What more do you want?

For it to be reverted? Because it's a terrible change with zero purpose?

Very nice of you to demean people about "not reading the last part of the statement" when it looks like you didn't read the middle part specifically saying what feedback is being looked for:

We'd like feedback on:

When renaming an account is required due to rule breaking, should the account be locked until the account owner contacts the moderation team, or should the account be reverted to the last used acceptable username?

I should be thanking people for making terrible decisions because they explain them terribly and then give me some trivial chance to give input on something that isn't related to the problem I have at all.

@nuggets said in Username rules updates:

might aswell remove rename altogether (i don't even have to talk about how ridiculous that is)

I am pretty curious as to how and why renaming every month became an essential part of FAF. What are the downsides to not changing your name all the time? To me it is just an arbitrary technical feature that some online services have and some don't, and I don't care either way, but it seems people here think it is an essential human right or something? It's very rare for people to change their legal names, and they almost always use the same name when they go to school, go to work, or meet someone at a grocery store, so why do you need to change your name every month on FAF?

Why do some games give you an account name and then let you pick whatever name you want in lobbies?

Why do some games give you a rename policy that is always open given you follow rename principles?

Why do some games let you rename every week? 2 weeks? month?

Because people like messing with names via community elements because there are orders of magnitude less ways to make yourself part of something relative to real life.

FAF might as well as remove color picks in lobbies and just assign a color per slot while they’re at it. Remove flags too. Assign a generated name at account creation. We’re just here to play games after all who cares about this stuff? Silent majority sure doesn’t.

When will any silent majority enjoyer come out and explain why the supporters of this policy are:

1. devs
2. mods
3. grimplex shitposting

And the supposed not silent majority is currently cut from contributors, players, regular players, not regular players, high rated, low rated, english speakers, and not english speakers based on thread feedback?

proposes change

requests feedback

receives overwhelming negative responses

remains adamant about the proposed changes and tries to invalidate all negative responses

like wtf is even the point of asking? just force the updates without asking if you're never letting your mind get changed

@thewheelienoob said in Username rules updates:

proposes change

requests feedback

receives overwhelming negative responses

remains adamant about the proposed changes and tries to invalidate all negative responses

like wtf is even the point of asking? just force the updates without asking if you're never letting your mind get changed

i think this is a bit of an over exaggeration. Jip posted his take (not gonna talk about that), but not the mod team in general didnt. It makes sense for the mods to talk about it internally first based on this feedback and then come with a response the mods can represent

the responses of various mods on discord weren't very internal, but i get what you are saying

Ah, i did not read anything on discord

@goodgamepleasety said in Username rules updates:

@jip What is so difficult about right clicking ones name in FAF, right clicking "show user info", then selecting their name history.
You can determine who the user is that way. Doesn't that by and large negate much of "player impersonation".

@theweakienoob said in Username rules updates:

@jip cool that you think checking the name history or posts is too much effort, I think otherwise.

What is so difficult , I'll just assume you're both trolling here. It did make me laugh, I'll be honest. If we reach the point that we need to either use a different application (FAF Client) or the forum history of a user to determine whether this is the same user that I spoke with last week then I'll just no longer use the forums. The amount of overhead that you suggest to be normal is just hilarious and I may try to put it on a tile.

@nuggets said in Username rules updates:

As gieb mentioned in his post, might aswell remove rename altogether (i don't even have to talk about how ridiculous that is).

Given that it breaks soft links on the forums it's not that ridiculous.

And I may agree on something with @ThomasHiatt ; since when is renaming such a vital feature of the FAForever experience that the first comment (with 14 up votes, what (!)) in this topic states that it helps the author decide whether the author wants to stay or leave? I thought we were here to see robots fight and talk about how to improve the Fatboy.

I'm going to casually ignore @FtXCommando as you take things to some extreme again and I have no interest diving into that.

If renaming creates such a hassle for the forum, why not keep lobby and forum names separate?

Jip surprised there is a human being behind the screen and not another script running to optimize game productivity hours. Half the benefit of small communities like FAF is the capacity to create more robust bonds than bigger communities. You’re just ruining one way people do things like have fun with one another (funny renames) or identify with one another (snf-like renames). Nobody with a capacity for human emotion agrees with the change.

I think one of the points here is that, whilst having the ability the change your username on a somewhat regular basis: 1 week, 2 weeks, monthly, like you can in most games, isn't a be all and end all for players.

It does however add an element of freedom. It's also fun and a useful feature to have for a number of reasons.

It seems senseless to restrict this freedom and feature to such a degree as suggested.

Most gaming community's have little to issue with players renaming to something similar to someone they like or admire, or just for the lols. Whatever the reason, taking such measures for the sake of pacifying a select few who have presumably complained about this seems unjustified and unfair.

Why restrict this nice little element of freedom players have in a community that is so small.

In fact, if you change the renaming rule so that players can't change their name for at least 1 year, then this could have the exact opposite effect of which it intends to remedy.

Consider this, leading up to the new rule, player x changes their name to player y to look like or seem like he is player z, or something similar to player z, thereby "impersonating" player z right before the change occurs. This Player y will now be subject to player impersonation for an entire year. He will carry his so-called impersonated name for 1 whole year, leading players to think, or be confused as to whether player y is actually player z, when he is in fact player x.

As the current 1 month rule stands, player y can revert his name back to being who he is normally know as, that is player x. Thereby resolving any "confusion" some players may have surrounding his identity in a relatively short space of time.

That goes away if 1 month changes to 1 year.

(Not to mention the fact - as I keep stating - that players can check who players are by simply checking their name history)

@jip said in Username rules updates:

since when is renaming such a vital feature of the FAForever experience that the first comment (with 14 up votes, what (!)) in this topic states that it helps the author decide whether the author wants to stay or leave?

I recommend you checking the Discord, general chat after this rule got announced. This rule is only the last droplet which lead to my response. I'm both tired and sick from the actions and I wasn't happy to be in the community for a while now, yet I stayed with the hope it might change and continued to contribute in several teams and discords. All these nonsense rules simply show me what direction FAF goes towards to, and I do not want to be a part of that if it continues aka. I do not support these changes at all.
Same for other players with things like "Area Reclaim" which causes the current mood, but I will not even start a debate here as you can check Discord again.

See these reactions not as a "this rule in specific is trash and it's the cause", see it as a "we are tired of every nonsense change and all of them together lead up to this" (Again, for more details, discord general chat)

Just out of curiosity I went a lookin:

Call of Duty: Every six months (you get a new name change token every six months)

Starcraft II: One free change every season (~3 months)

Fortnite (lol): Every two weeks

League of Legends: "You wanna see the cards you gotta pay the money" ($10)

Warthunder: First is free, all after $2.49.

AOE2: Connected to steam/xbox username (steam you can change as much as you want, xbox first time free/second time fee--also what masochist is playing aeo2 on the xbox)

Rocket League: Platform name (steam/epic/etc.)

Valorant: Free every three months, looks like LOL is going in this direction as well.

Blizzard games: One for free, more for fee

EVE Online: You will be who you are forever

@cocainediesel said in Username rules updates:

Just out of curiosity I went a lookin:

Call of Duty: Every six months (you get a new name change token every six months)

Starcraft II: One free change every season (~3 months)

Fortnite (lol): Every two weeks

League of Legends: "You wanna see the cards you gotta pay the money" ($10)

Warthunder: First is free, all after $2.49.

AOE2: Connected to steam/xbox username (steam you can change as much as you want, xbox first time free/second time fee--also what masochist is playing aeo2 on the xbox)

Rocket League: Platform name (steam/epic/etc.)

Valorant: Free every three months, looks like LOL is going in this direction as well.

Blizzard games: One for free, more for fee

EVE Online: You will be who you are forever

Runescape: once per 28 days (free)

What is so difficult , I'll just assume you're both trolling here. It did make me laugh, I'll be honest. If we reach the point that we need to either use a different application (FAF Client) or the forum history of a user to determine whether this is the same user that I spoke with last week then I'll just no longer use the forums. The amount of overhead that you suggest to be normal is just hilarious and I may try to put it on a tile.

By the fact that you actually think they are trolling makes me feel like you are completly out of touch of any multiplayer community. I will admit that forum names should probably be split from faf-names. But that is only because the forum does not have the feature to look into past names like in the client.

@nuggets said in Username rules updates:

As gieb mentioned in his post, might aswell remove rename altogether (i don't even have to talk about how ridiculous that is).

Given that it breaks soft links on the forums it's not that ridiculous.

It is insane to even think about removing the rename feature because there is a bug / something unexpected happening because of that in the forum.

And I may agree on something with @ThomasHiatt ; since when is renaming such a vital feature of the FAForever experience that the first comment (with 14 up votes, what (!)) in this topic states that it helps the author decide whether the author wants to stay or leave? I thought we were here to see robots fight and talk about how to improve the Fatboy.

Yes it's completly insane to think that by removing fun features people are less inclined to stay.

I'm going to casually ignore @FtXCommando as you take things to some extreme again and I have no interest diving into that.

I do not believe FTX comment was that extreme. I do believe that you do not get our perspective.

@goodgamepleasety

Runescape

*for paying members (<$12.49 a month in burgerland)

@cocainediesel or free by buying in game bonds with GP. So depending on how much effort you put into the game (or have built up your account), can be a function of whether or not you essentially get to play for free indefinitely.

Better off comparing it to FAF-like games than live-service AAA games monetizing everything they can. Town of Salem divides game names from account names and the former are able to be changed game to game. Don’t recall BAR rename policy exactly but pretty sure it was also every month or so. Empire at War MP allows you to rename as you like. Most other MP games I’ve played (civ, paradox games) with smaller communities just use Steam names so they don’t need to be concerned with it.