Allow Character name Non-Unique, is Legacy is not unique

It is fine as it is, the only thing they should do is free up some names that nobody has used for ages.

All characternames below level 10 and not used for 10 months should be free for all to take,

I agree with you on the later for the most part; if I see another derivative of Ahsoka, my head just might explode. However, it is their game and they can play however they want to.

The problem with unique character names over legacy names is simply a matter of quantity, especially with SWTOR's larger server size.

Legacy names would be limited to one per account--for most people, that's one per person. However, there can be (up to) 12 different character names. This really fills up the pool quickly. When you add up all the people to ever play on a server, the number of currently locked names gets pretty large.

And when people are just going to use Dârth Böb Sîth anyway, why not make it easier on them. And Darth Bob Sith looks better to everyone else.

Plus, there are a lot of benefits to having unique Legacy names over character names, like finding people on their alts.

I'm so confused. I was pretty sure Legacy names haven't been unique for a long time now (something I hate, btw).

As long as they figure out a way that allows you to differentiate between Darth Bob and Darth Bob, then I can push aside my possessiveness over my character's names, because possessiveness is relatively inconsequential to game design, while being unable to tell the difference between Darth Bob and Darth Bob is not.

And, such a system would hopefully find a solution that wasn't as ugly as what Cryptic Studios does, by having account names plastered everywhere.

Of course, this is all kind of pointless. This is a suggestion thread and belongs in the suggestion sub-forum. I think it's important for all of us to take a step back and remember that this isn't commentary on a system they are implementing.

This ^

Possessiveness should not enter the equation. I have no beef with someone IRL that has my same first name. The best option I have seen thus far is to have neither the first or surname unique. Rather, (if possible) have the union of the two be unique and have legacy name be chosen before first character creation and be required to even access the character builder. At that point everyone will just see both your names everywhere you see the one now.

EA/Bioware, really really really needs to free up some names from dead accounts.

I can only Imagine how many names are still tied up from people who stopped playing after the first free month at launch and In 2012 We lost something like 700K subs. Everyone who quit got to keep there character names? Server mergers aside that's a lot of freekin names!

It shouldn't be an issue but with the higher server caps we have a lot of people complaining. Please release character names from dead accounts, I know you guys want to keep them in case those players come back, but I really think current players should get priority.

Jrea, You are right but I could have swore I saw something a while back about accounts that are not logged in in like sixty days have their names go up for grabs. It was implemented around the same time that the inactive guild rules were put into place. Those being that if nobody in a guild logs in is so long of a time that the next person to log in is instantly promoted to GM and offered a guild name change.

Hardly, You might want it, but it's not even close to something BWEA needs to do.

People would start transferring en masse.

That's a lot of potential cash.

bump!

It's bad enough that legacy names are not unique. If anything it's the best way to identify a player rather than a character. I always thought that was a bad move, because especially when you have players who behave improperly it should've been an option to put a legacy on ignore.

This is not the case however so ninja looters and other types of people you want to avoid are very difficult to avoid now. Name changes and character transfers, nice as they may be, again don't help you in knowing who's who.

So no, I do not want names to be non-unique. Aside from the point that I wouldn't want BW to spend any resources on it, I really think it's a bad idea.

I do think that low level characters that haven't been used for a long time should be freed up. It is silly that someone who created an account over a year ago and decided not to play still get to block names. They may never come back. Especially since we already went through 2 rounds of name changes due to server transfers, there really is no reason not to do this.

What makes it more difficult also is that we cannot use a space in our names like GW1 had for example. Interestingly GW2 doesn't allow that either and character names there are unique across ALL servers....so really they've got it worse.