They become a second identity when you use them for that long.

10% of me is on your side, the other 90% blames you for the perceived stereotype (or not so perceived) of the overly emotional, illogically attached D&D/Roleplaying/MMO/Immersion nerd....but my 10% is on your side. Maybe even as high as 25%.

^This is a good idea

 

Also, even if you can't secure the names you have now, you should be able to get something better than Spoon

What the FORK are you talking about? SPOON is a cool name!

So... you name your legacy "Skywalker" and yet you are still trying to convince people that you care about character names ?

that is the point... and i cannot believe people are stil quoting me just to poke fun... well it is the internet so i can believe...

but i do not care about any of these characters anymore... I made a character that looked like bastila, mission, carth etc... and when i played them i felt a little more like i was playing kotor, my favorite game ever... when i lost all of their names... i just stopped caring about them. they are not special. they have obscure meaningless names just like everyone else now.

now i play my characters and i have no immersion or investment, because bioware broke the fantasy.

"...The fear of loss is a path to the dark side." - Yoda

I am Dark Side!

I refuse to transfer and so now I am one of 14 ppl online on my server. I refuse to change my name or put ASCII codes in it. My solution is to just cancel my subscription. If BW ever makes it so I can keep my names and still move to a more populated server then I'll reactivate my account.

BW has used a lot of ideas from Bliz as well as other games as they should and I would encourage them to continue. In Diablo 3 Bliz did a brilliant thing and added Nicknames to accounts which is basically a name I chose plus some random 4 digit number (think of it as an address). So now I can name my character what ever I wish and that name can still be used by others. My friends simply add me to their list using my nickname.

Now this would require some basic code and database changes but it is doable and makes sense for an MMO that more than one person can have a certain name. Mail would then be sent to Prime@1234Nickname rather than just Prime or auto-filled from my guild list or friends list.

but i do not care about any of these characters anymore... I made a character that looked like bastila, mission, carth etc... and when i played them i felt a little more like i was playing kotor, my favorite game ever... when i lost all of their names... i just stopped caring about them. they are not special. they have obscure meaningless names just like everyone else now.

You realize that all those names are in violation of the Naming Policy:

You may not use proper names of non-player characters within Star Wars: The Old Republic, e.g. Darth Malgus, Satele Shan, Yoda, Darth Vader or Luke Skywalker.

You may not use misspellings or alternative spellings of names that violate any of the above rules, e.g. Hamsolo, Yooda, DorthVader.

Granted, a lot of people have picked names like that, and BioWare doesn't seem to enforce that policy as much as they should, but people who take those names shouldn't be surprised if their names get revoked.

now i play my characters and i have no immersion or investment, because bioware broke the fantasy.

The fantasy isn't about you playing existing characters (who are long dead by the time of SWTOR, and referenced in game), it's about you playing your own story:

Play Star Wars™: The Old Republic™ and be the hero of your own Star Wars™ saga in a story-driven massively-multiplayer online game from BioWare and LucasArts. Explore an age thousands of years before the rise of Darth Vader when war between the Galactic Republic and the Sith Empire divides the galaxy.

I empathize with people who have lost names that they're attached to, but you should never have expected to have been allowed to keep those names to begin with.

I already lost my account name. (Evalyn was my WoW name)

Ever (My first characters name)

Fae (Second characters name, both of those names are always taken because of simple spelling. I don't want a a name that is thisfreakinglongandalwaysspellitwrongomgimajedi)

The reason why I pre-ordered and got ahead of the game was so I can pick names I really wanted. Now I'm having to memorize half my guild's new names because of the new server. I wish it was the other way around, and they came to my old server. : /

But there isn't anything I can do. /shrugs