Character Name Purge with Folks not Playing Anymore

So you check the name Jadrian every day(so you say). is the account user owning that name online on a different toon? you have no idea. Is he an Aussie and on different time slots than you?(you have no idea)

Do you think that some one on an active account playing characters A B and C should lose the name Z because you wants it? Do they have to have every character in their list on everyday to satisfy you?

If I stopped paying for the vacation home for 4 years, I would be shocked if it WASN'T given to someone else.

Hoping you're being sarcastic. If not, one of the worst analogies in history.

he's not. ridiculous arguments reign supreme.

All hail Ridiculous Arguments!

That's an awful idea from a sales/conversion perspective. Why would BW do that? Just so you could change your name to Booba Fett?

I bow at the feet of ridiculous arguments! May their rule last an age and more!

All I want for a naming convention is the ability to add a Space or Underscore. I've got toons I've played for over 20yrs dating back to paper RPG. It bothers the world out of me that I cannot seperate the 1st & last names.

Also as for sitting on names, I sub & I have 4 toons sitting on lvl 1 b/c I am focusing all my time Max'in my main toon. If someone were looking for a name i have, it would appear I'm not logging in, when in fact, I've been playing almost everyday. Just not w/ the others.

I also have toons on 2 different servers. I originaly created my toon on Eban Hawk (toon by the same name), however, due to server issues I switched to Meng Ja server where all my other toons are. I've been tryin (without success) to get my toon off Eban Hawk w/o needing to delete him. I'll take any suggestions on that if someon has one.

FInally, all the ppl crying about delting names if an account is inactive for an extended time. there is a saying "Snooze you Lose." Also, "Money Talks" If a user unsubs/ does not log into their account for an extended time, it does not benefit BW to hold the player/account info. It wastes space on servers better used for new players coming in & it is preventing the success of the renaming customization featuer that 2.1 gives (and we subs pay for too). Your complaints are like that of my children trying to justify stying up past their bedtime on a school night. There is no justification outside of hearing your own complaints.

Sorry for the war & peace post. Got caried away.

I'm all for names being freed up from inactive accounts/toons. I also think that there should be some level of name enforcement on RP servers as I'm sick of seeing game handle style names all over the place.

I'd even go a step farther and say that in the event a name is currently "in use" (I use that term loosely here) by an inactive account and another account is sitting on a character in re-name purgatory due to that name being lost during the forced server merges last year that that name should be returned to the next account in line. The people that have stuck with this game and continued to invest both time and money should be rewarded.

A person that doesn't invest time and/or money in this game should not be afforded, rights, benefits, or protections over a person that does support this game, and to expect such just demonstrates an unfounded sense of entitlement and selfishness. Bioware and EA should reward those that have been loyal to this game, not casually toss them aside in an ill guided attempt to appease players that have long sense left on the hope that they might return. There should be no guarantee that your characters will still have their names if you are gone and inactive that long.

If a player doesn't log in for six months to a year, they should be given one courtesy notification e-mail that their names are forfeit if they don't show activity in one month. Simple as that. At that point, is an active player has an identical named character stuck in rename purgatory due to the server merges, that name should be returned to them. Otherwise the name is returned to the pool of available names. If the player that lost their name ever returns, they can attempt to reclaim that name as long as it isn't in use by an active account. If it is in use, well, they had an extended period of time in which they could've shown interest in their account/character but chose not to.

Like I said, reward the people that are active.

Names are a precious commodity in this game, and by condensing dozens of servers that each had several hundred uniquely named toons into a small handful of servers the already limited naming system in SWTOR was crippled in several ways. Early access players and RP players were wronged in this. Furthermore the introduction of the F2P and Preferred account models further hinders this. Mathematically the game will eventually reach a point where the only viable names for new characters will be things like "Fblthp", and so a purge of inactive names will likely be needed at some point.

And don't harp on about special characters being usable for names. That's an asinine fix, insipid argument, and insulting to people that have already been dealt a low blow. We shouldn't have to settle for bastardized versions on names we had before. Not to mention the complications that come with Friend Lists and in-game Mail.

Besides, it's good business sense; You keep the currently active customer base happy by freeing up names and allowing people to reclaim those they lost, and BioWare/EA profits off the sell of Cartel Coins for character renames from a once more health pool of available names.

Sadly though, it seems the powers that be are contend to continually ignore this issue by burying their heads in the sand, and those that disagree will continue to antagonize those of us that are passionate about this issue with impertinent remarks and arguments.

Actually, if the character is lower than level 50(/55), you can see if it's played at all or not. When you add a character to your friend list, for a little moment you can see their level, planet and class. If the character is level1-49 and haven't gotten a level for 6 months, you can pretty positively say that no one is playing that character.
Of course, there's still no way to know if the person is playing some other character of theirs.