Legacy surnames do not make sense

im pretty sure that is the point.

The End.

1) It doesn't make sense that your character "earns" his surname.

2) There's no reason for the Legacy surname to be a unique name.

1a) Let us create a surname at character creation.

Surnames are at 30.

/endthread

I haven't been a fan of the Legacy surnames since they announced it, and now the more I think about it, the more I think it's a terrible idea for several reasons.

1) It doesn't make sense that your character "earns" his surname. What does Joe Smith do in life to earn the privilege of using the name Smith? Nothing. It's his name, and he has it from birth. There's no explanation for why characters suddenly earn their surname 30 levels into the story.

2) There's no reason for the Legacy surname to be a unique name. The only reason to have unique names is to be able to identify player characters on the server. We already have that with the characters' first names. Creating a unique identifying first name, and then 30 levels later creating a unique identifying second name is redundant. There's no logical reason why surnames have to be unique when first names are already unique.

4) There's no reason why all of my characters on the server should have the same last name. If I create a human Bounty Hunter and then Twi'lek Jedi Knight, why would they have the same last name? It doesn't make sense, and there's no reason for it.

5) Creating your character's name is a big deal for many people. Having a name that you like is important. In all MMOs, we have to create a unique name for our characters at character creation. Sometimes after a day or two, a player may decide that naming her character "Funnybunny" was not a great idea after all. It's not a big deal since it's a low-level character, she can just delete it and start over. If however we choose a Legacy surname we later decide was a bad idea, we're screwed. The character is level 30 now, so deleting and start over isn't a fair option. And we're not only stuck with it on this character, but every future character we make on that server. Granted, it would be my own fault for making up a dumb name, but still it's not a good system if it can put people in that position. I've seen posts in the New User help forum from people with this very problem. I think it's going to generate many tickets to GMs requesting to reset the name so it can be changed to something better.

These complaints and more came up during the beta (for the few days testers had to respond to this system when it was sprung up at the last minute). The idea of a Legacy system that gives you incentives and bonuses for creating new characters after leveling one is a good idea, but this implementation of surnames is illogical, will create problems for people, is bad for RP, and it should be changed.

I suggest the following changes should be made:

1a) Let us create a surname at character creation.
1b) OR if we can only create a surname at level 30, let us change it if we want to, to avoid being "stuck" if we made a mistake.
2) Make surnames not unique, meaning two or more players can have characters with the same surname.
3) Allow us to make different surnames for each of our characters on the server.