Factors for a fair forced transfer: Naming

I'm so confused by this. I recently had to change all but 1 of my characters' names when I migrated from a server scheduled for closing. Fortunately, I got to keep my legacy name, which would have peeved me a little more, but honestly... what gives you any right to a name on another server just because you tagged it first on a totally different server? What if that person just as eagerly reserved his name as you did on your server? Technically, you're the new guy on the server, so you get to deal with the new guy woes: not knowing a lot of the people, being restricted by the name pool being used.

Perhaps if they used a naming convention more like what was used in Galaxies where both parts of your name were combined to make one unique string for your character things would be a little different... but they used the char name as a unique string divorced from the legacy name string... and thus you're screwed.

You are gonna loose your name. So, you want SOMEONE ELSE to loose his name, because you don't want to. And this is supposed to be fair ?
I'm on a destination server. Always been since day 1 of prerelease. If someone come from another server, and I have to change my name, a name I always had, the same name everyone knows me on this server, I will be disappointed to say the least. It could happen, I've tested my name on another server when I was able to play for the first time, (one merged with mine), and it was already taken. I wasn't able to play until 1-2h after the server started this day, and someone must have been real quick.
I know this is harsh for many people. But it wouldn't be more fair if people on destination server loose their name for a newcomer.

If they allowed duplicate first names you'd constantly have to use the player's legacy name:

/whisper esri.seska
/invite esri.seska

All chat would have to show your first and last name so people know who you are. Same as party and ops group UI. You can't have two "Obiwang" in group and not know which is which! What if the player doesn't have legacy unlocked yet? They have no last name.

The devs probably do have a character ID (serial number) on each character to tell them apart even if they did have the same first name, but there are a lot of other technical and aesthetic issues to consider that make this option extremely unlikely.

What do I think should happen with forced mergers? I don't think there is any perfect solution. Someone is going to have to compromise by choosing a new name. Personally I think if someone is transferring over and their name has been taken by a long-inactive account, they should be able to take it.

Also not a good way to go about it. This makes the same mistake Bioware did when they announced a free month to level 50 characters.

Not everyone plays at the same rate. Consider a player that has a character boasting the name of one of your characters. This player has a different play style than you; perhaps he levels eight characters equally, and as such his character's level is lower than yours. Perhaps he balances the game with one or more jobs and a family, and as a result has logged less time on his character than you have on yours. Yet he's been subscribed since launch, and has payed just as much to BioWare and EA as you. He deserves to keep the character name at least as much as you do.

We saw this song and dance before. We know how it ends. Let's not ask the developers to repeat their mistakes.

Face it.

Your names are DEAD, Jim.

Eh next time pick more creative names. When I transferred over I didn't have to change any of my character's names or legacy(It was in Catalan, not a very common language.)

I moved 6 characters in the "free transfer". I had to choose new names for 2 of them. One of those was a "system generated" name that I happened to like (no big deal), the other turned out to be available in the spelling I ORIGINALLY wanted for that character but was unavailable on the server I created it on (win/win).

Moral is, who knows? you may get to keep your name. And if you do need to change it? Just how "original" and "unique" is it anyway to warrant your worry over?

Like some other person said earlier in your post, I am an MMO "veteran" who does repeat many names when I play a new MMO. And, to be honest, your "do not try to debate me" response to them was rude, crude, and seemed to be written by a 10 year old child. Learn what constructive criticism is and learn to take it.

Seriously, if it is a "game breaker" for you...then what can I say? Don't let the door hit you on the way out. These transfers are what may save the game, not your subscription. If you would quit over something so trivial, you are lost already.

There's an issue now with the mailing service if we let everyone keep their first names.

I'd like to offer up a simple solution, and this seems like as good of a thread as any to do it.

Group up the rest of the players who have stayed on their original server onto a new server. This gives players a greater chance of getting the names they want, while also putting together a like-minded community. This doesn't solve the problem completely but I think it's a simple solution that a majority of players still on original servers could get on board with.

Yes I realize names aren't important to some people, but they are important enough to some players who didn't think the server populations were an issue. SWTOR may not lose a significant amount of subscriptions due to people upset about the names, but that's no reason to start chipping away at the player base for something they offered but are now taking away.

The number of players left on the dead servers is such a small number, they will not be considered with any specail treatment. You will be forced to transfer and lose your names, to do so otherwise would not be fair to those who have allready transfered and lost thier names.