Factors for a fair forced transfer: Naming

If you like playing golf in the middle of an electrical storm...time to change your likes
If you like unzipping your pants in front of a rotating fan...time to change your likes
If you like swallowing Mentos and chugging a Litre of Coca-cola...time to change your likes

If you like getting too personally attached to your MMO character's names...time to change your likes

It is simply a fact of life that most of us have learned to protect ourselves from, and we are trying to impart some of this learning experience upon those that seem new to it. Meh...everyone who learns had to learn from the pain I guess...

Reminds me of Manifest Destiny and the old American West. People moved out west to claim land for farms and ranches yet failed to see the people who lived there first (the Native Americans). When the Native Americans fought back, they were slaughtered and/or forced to move. Now they're a rare sight across the United States unless you're near a reservation which often is no where near their ancestral home.

Also reminds me of those that stay in their house when a massive flood is going to occur. Their excuse is that their entire lives are in that house and they fail to see material possessions can be replaced. You can't take it with you when you die so no sense dying over it. Then they end up dead when the flood hits them like a ton of bricks. Replace flood with bombing, hurricane, tornado, fire, etc. People cling to the dumbest things and ultimately it can lead to an even worse situation for them.

The people on the destination server have every right to the names they picked and not be bullied out of it because they played less than another player. It's not their fault they happened to pick a name someone else also picked on another server. No player is better than another. We are all equal when it comes to names. Just pick another one. In all honesty, we knew Bioware was going to eventually merge servers. You could've moved your characters a month ago, been forced to rename, and had a chance at a good rename. Instead, you decided to putz around clinging to a dead server and now are crying because your name will be lost and your chance of getting even your second choice is slim to nil.

Think of the rename as your chance to actually be creative. Pick something no one else thought of. In the transfers, I lost a grand total of 1 name but every other name I had was unique, including my legacy name. There are plenty of random name generators as well as baby name sites to use for ideas. There's millions of names you can pick.

If you're going to quit over something so simple as a bunch of pixels attached to a name ... don't let the digital door hit you on the way out. And seek professional help if digital pixels are so important to you. Do remember, it's a game, not real life. Ultimately, names matter little in a game. Your friends should know you by the name you wish to be called so it shouldn't matter if your toon has the same name or not. It's ultimately the player who's being talked to, not the character. If your character is Abcde (and yes, that's a real name [ab c dee]) and your real name is Bob, your friends can call you Bob instead of Abcde or whatever character you happen to be on. It's just pixels.

This is not a viable option. Not all the characters that remains on source servers are there due to naming concerns. Some of my characters remain, for example, for no other reason than there's not enough room for them on the destination server. Others remain because their players are currently absent and/or unsubscribed from the game at the moment. If the developers ever want to win these players back, they need to be able to offer them the opportunity to play with the friends, family, and guildimates that they left behind, individuals that have already moved to a destination server; move these individuals somewhere else, and they are forever lost as customers.

For whatever reason it's hard for some people to believe names are important, or that just because they can't think of a way around an issue, it must be unsolvable and should be just tolerated.

My opinion is that the forced transfers should happen to a new server, or a couple servers, and not to any of the already full to bursting servers, which will be even fuller with free trials. This greatly minimizes the chance the name you want is taken.

The new server will have all the non-transferred characters, so population should not be an issue. Since all the players were already playing on dead servers and not complaining, even if the population is low it shouldn't be an issue.

If there are name clashes, BW can put some kind of conflict resolution system in place. Maybe you could allow people (only on origin servers) to log onto the new server a few days before the transfer and create a level one character with the name you want which will be overwritten with your character.

A lot of transfers will be from 'dead' accounts, so the people who really want their names should be able to get them.

If you combine that with some kind of conflict resolution system, then the transfer won't be a big issue, and everyone is happy.

So if my friends are attached to their names and I'm not, I'm supposed to change my friends. Genius!

I'm not all that attached to my names, and they are unique enough that I would only have to change a couple. However, it is important to my friends and because of that I may not be continuing my subscription.

I'm glad that you're not as concerned about names as some players, it means you'll continue to play the game, but I'm sure there is an issues in game that would make you reconsider your subscription. I don't think you'd appreciate it if others came into your discussion and lambasted you for something they don't care about.

See my previous post as to why this is not a viable option.

The only real issue I had with the transfers was that not all servers got to transfer at the same time. I was on Vornskr with some names I was lucky to get after we finished beta and got assigned the server due to the guild reservations. I was really going to stick it out and remain there, but as I saw way too many leave when we were finally offered the transfer I bit my tongue and transfers all my characters.

Sadly I lost a few names I was really happy to have gotten before. So my only complaint would be why couldn't you open The Harbinger (the server we got to transfer too) server to all of the servers you wanted to dump in there at the same time to give all of us equal chance to reclaim the names we had? I was able to get very close variations of the original names so I'm not too bent over it, and they are alts so not regularly played anyhow.

As a long time MMO player I know the value of creating your character and really getting attached to the look, name skills and so on. So when any of them are changes or lost you feel a loss for the character too.

Server transfers don't have to be limited to that new server you can have transfers for both if people are waiting for more slots. As for the inactive accounts they should be here to make their own decision. Inactive accounts should never take precedent over active accounts. Plus the plan is to expand the transfer server system so players returning will have an opportunity to play with their friends once that is in place.

Then, however, you are compounding a currently-existing problem. You are arbitrarily forcing players to split their characters even further. Not a good option.
Inactive accounts should never take precedence, but active accounts should not be granted precedence in this situation, either. Consider the player that cancelled his account because there was an addition to his family. Or because he was deployed oversees.

And as to further plans for transfers, they would fail to account for this divide. Further transfers are supposed to be fee-based. If you require a returning player to pay a fee in addition to his or her subscription in order to play the game with family and friends, the developers will lose more returning players than they actually win back.

Anyone that was forced to change their legacy name and lose their characters name that they've had since release should've been giving something for that loss.

That will never happen and it's pathetic.