Retire Character Idea

so this basically is a minor expansion on the Passive Skill post i just made, but basically in the event someone decides to stop playing the game on an indefinate basis for some reason, i think the idea of being given the option to retire the character instead of biomassing might then be a better option, when you biomass the person’s pod appears in their corp CEO’s hanger (I have a pod from someone who randomly biomassed a few years ago) however retired characters could some how still interact with the world, maybe not out there mining asteroids and building stuff, but skill farming or something else maybe?

you’re either logged in or your logged out, your character exisits or it doesn’t.

MAYBE it could be possible for there to be some kind of middle ground option somewhere, just as an example, I would rather Retire the spare toons I have on my account and make fresh ones than simply biomass them. at least this way the legacy of those characters can in some way then live on in the game.

Edit:
if its the players that make this game, then I feel that as a player I would rather leave a legacy in the game some how then just a memory, memories can fade, legacies last and can bring people together or cause fueds, but alas that is also the nature of EVE online to paraphase Shadowrun “In New Eden, the war never stops”

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I don’t understand why we need some Schrodinger’s Cat state between biomassed and not biomassed. Either nut up and nuke your chars or keep them for later.

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then you’re missing the point.

What is the point then? Do you just want infinite char slots on your account or something? If you don’t want some mouth breather stealing your name, why not suggest that a ticket to CCP can permanently reserve the name so that no one else can be Dark Lord Trump or whatever.

Drogon Mace sounds to me like you want them to archive old characters but keep their biographies around. I have always suggested it in other games ever since WoW was a thing. All those other games never allowed for the Roman nomenclature (two names and a surname) so I wouldn’t say that Eve Online lacks in this department.

What I recommended very often to those other games was after 90 days of inactivity, the user account should be archived to backup. Should that player ever return they would need to rename the character, unless it is still available. This would keep the database clean of people who just “kick the tires” and leave.

Otherwise, if you are saying you want some kind of memorial for your characters, just create a user blog somewhere. I have seen this done countless times for several different games.

Here are some decent examples;

Guild Wars
Champions
Black Desert

well a memorial wasn’t something i had in mind, however it is actually a good idea, a few years ago we had a bunch of videos made about our characters and things like how many ship kills, how many hours played etc, i kinda like the idea of a memorial being something which others could watch and learn about that characters history. just because those videos were pretty damn cool.

Circling back to my inital concept though, I suppose a retire character option would be something akin to table top gaming, any table top gamer knows real life gets in the way from time to time and sometimes people can’t make the game, so the player will temporarily give the GM control of their character and say “my toon is available to help the party while i’m away, don’t get it killed”

then when you come back next week you just take over your character again, however in this case the player doesn’t make a return, so your character just kinda sits docked in a station chilling out, IF (and i stress IF) the concept of using player owned structures, to create skill farms became an aspect of game play experience retired characters will just skill in these structures. this way should bounty hunting make a return from CCP these characters with bounties on them will remain logged in and viable targets.

honestly i’m not sure what the best execution would be for retiring a player, i feel like biomassing is one extreme, i suppose its more of a sentimental aspect in my own mind

“hey i’ve played eve i’ve had fun, but for whatever the reason maybe i have to drain my pod fluid and call it quits now, i’ll retire my toon so it can be in some way helpful to the cause, so keep fighting the good fight people!” retires character

this concept does mainly work in relation to the skill farms i mentioned on my other post, but i’m sure if we collectively put our heads together there would be some kind of need within the community it could be a viable option for outside of bounty hunting that is.

this is also from an aspect of as a player knowing CCP does care about its community and player base, I’ve mentioned before about other games specifically one called Tibia. in Tibia there was a woman who played the game but was unfortunately in poor health and wasn’t going to make it, however she was enjoying the game and the community she was part of and wanted to get her charcter to level 100, she spoke with cipsoft (the games company) to make an exception to the rule of account sharing, that when she passed someone else could level her character to level 100. the games company allowed this and the new person got to work leveling the character.

the games company literally disabled the account while the person was playing and was JUST about to hit level 100. this has always stuck in my mind because i can’t look at that game the same way, what i personally feel what would of been better is some kind of ability to retire the character or memoralise it in this case. such a thing is much more graceful than “well they just don’t log on anymore”

if i’m not going to play / be around anymore, my character and its legacy may still be in some way capable of creating content for the people i’ve blown up in game or griefed.
that also comes down to personal preference but it would be an option I’d like to see in a game. perhaps my toon can join one of these Diamond NPC corps, I’m pro trig, so perhaps take my toon and slap on a diamond infront of the name and let it go to town, again that may not even be the greatest idea but at the very least i’m trying to get the ball rolling on this one.

I have had hundreds of consecutive inactivity days, usually due to school. I would really hate this.

this is why I think there should be options and choices to retire or memorialise characters instead of just biomass, imagine flying with a person for years and having a great laugh with them, then one day they announce they have to quit the game, then they just completely biomass their toon and one day and while you continue to game down the line you’re sharing stories you go “yeah i’d link you to the toon, but its biomassed”

I just tossed the number out there, in all honesty, it would be up to the owner to set a lapse in time. This would greatly depend on the popularity of the game and the number of players. No matter how long or short the time is set, someone wouldn’t like it.

But again, this is not directed at this game either. I recall the first time I suggested it was, in fact WoW, because they limited the number of characters and the singular name had to be very unique. To this day, I don’t understand why they need to be a unique field in the database.

They could run a game and allow (just as in real life) for duplicate names. Any US city will have hundreds of John Smith listed. If a unique identifier is needed, the program would add a hash tag number that the client will not display. The database would see John Arthur Smith#0192817 when displayed by the client program you would only see up to the hash tag. The number of John Smith’s could seem to be infinite, but there would be a way to tell them apart. When filing a complaint against a John Smith, the support team would know which one you had contact with, thus the names don’t need to be so limited in any online game.

Other games allow for underscore and you can do John_Smith but again they only will allow for the one. I have worked with corporate databases and it seems adding the hash tag equivalent of a social security number would be the best way to set up the game on day one. I have a common name in the real world but my bank and other databases seem to know who I am by my account number.

@Drogon_Mace sorry if I derailed your topic. But as you can tell, the whole unique name thing has irritated me for decades.

FYI CCP is able and willing to retrieve even biomassed toons if you come back after long time. And even if the name their used was taken - you will get new name (which is weird considered how unwilling they are to change your toon name normally).

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