The details from the blog on name changes:

What Will My New Server Be?

 

As part of the United Forces update, your characters will be moved to one of five new servers.

 

•Harbinger

•Bergeren Colony

•Bastion

 

To ->

•The Hot Prospect: (North America)

 

 

•Jedi Covenant

•Shadowlands

•Ebon Hawk

•Prophecy of the Five

•Jung Ma

 

To ->

•Star Forge: (North America)

 

 

•Progenitor

•Tomb of Freedon Nadd

•Red Eclipse

 

To ->

•Darth Malgus (Europe – English)

 

 

•Mantle of the Force

•Battle Meditation

•Darth Nihilus

 

To ->

•The Leviathan (Europe – French)

 

 

•T3-M4

•Vanjervalis Chain

•Jar’Kai Sword

 

To ->

•Tulak Hord (Europe – German)

 

 

How Am I Affected?

 

It is our intent that this process will have very little impact on you or your account. Since Character names must be unique on a server, it is possible that when we create the new United Forces servers, you may need to rename your character. As part of the process of uniting the galaxy, we will communicate a specific set of rules to govern the prospective scenario where two names collide:

 

•Premium players (Subscribers) will have priority over Free-to-Play and Preferred Status players.

•Highly played characters will have priority over characters with less play time.

 

To limit the challenge of duplicated names we will proactively remove names from characters that have not been played within the past 90-days or more and which are below Level 10. We know your character’s name is very important to you and so we are taking steps to ensure that you can hang on to the names you love to the greatest extent possible!

 

The new United Forces galaxy will have no impact on your Guild, Guild Bank, Achievements, or Strongholds. While all Legacy Family Trees will reset during the update, for most players, there will be minimal impact on your Legacy. For more details on the process and rules please see the details below.

 

What will happen to my character(s)?

 

Currently, a Premium (Subscriber) account is allowed a maximum of 52 characters per server. Following the United Forces update, accounts with more than 52 characters on a server will be accommodated. You will still be able to access and play each of those characters. However, if you wish to make any new characters after that point, you will need to delete characters until you are back at or below the cap of 52.

 

For Free-to-Play accounts, this process will work a little differently. Following the United Forces update, if your account has characters beyond the Free-to-Play limit of 2, then all your characters will be set to ‘deactivated’. This allows you to log in and choose which characters you would like to activate and play.

 

Character Names

 

In most cases, nothing will happen to your character name. Names will only be impacted when there are two of the exact same name on the new United Forces server at which point a governing system determines which character has priority:

 

•Premium players (Subscribers) will have priority over Free-to-Play and Preferred Status players.

•Highly played characters will have priority over characters with less play time.

 

To proactively offset unnecessary challenges around character names, we are initiating a process of removing names from long inactive accounts. Any character that has not logged in for 90-days or more which has not progressed beyond level 10 will be flagged to rename their character.

I like the part that says "In most cases, nothing will happen to your character name.". If your name doesn't suck; others will have used your name on other servers. I hate to break it to you but you are not the only Smith out there.

If you have a good name your odds of keeping that name depend on the number of servers being merged; i.e. 3 servers you have a 1 in 3 chance of keeping your name, 5 servers, 1 in 5 chance.

We will all win some and lose some.

Also they should not be deleting the < L10s on PAID accounts.

I don't care much for my Alts except for 1 which has an amazing name. My main doesn't seem to have been used by people higher level than me or more active so I'm good.

I guess there will be some sad people. But what can you do.

I don't care much for my Alts except for 1 which has an amazing name. My main doesn't seem to have been used by people higher level than me or more active so I'm good.

I guess there will be some sad people. But what can you do.

Oh tell us your amazing name

j/k

Oh tell us your amazing name

 

j/k

Noway, you forum people will find it lame and be honest about it. Not going to get my name potentially ruined!

Sometimes ignorance is bliss.(But it's a rly nice name, honestly)

It could be a good first name?

<amazingname> Smith

I agree they should have a record of a paid name change and if a player who paid for a name change is required to change their name cartel coins should be refunded.

But I also agree the mergers are necessary so they just have to have a way to compensate people for their paid troubles (i.e. the way I said above). I haven't paid for any name changes and know of one name that I will have to change because I have it on two characters on two of the servers that will be merging. That's life.

Hm, I sense a severe lack of respect here. Just because you don't share the concerns of others, don't mock them for it. Just a bit of friendly advice.

No, sorry. You can keep your friendly advice. That statement was ridiculous.

No, sorry. You can keep your friendly advice. That statement was ridiculous.

We all have different things that are important to us in this game. My characters' identities are vital, and without them there's no reason to continue giving these people money. You may think otherwise, that's your right, just be respectful.

Noway, you forum people will find it lame and be honest about it. Not going to get my name potentially ruined!

Sometimes ignorance is bliss.(But it's a rly nice name, honestly)

The good, the bad and the ugly. Names are just 1 of the many problems with Servers merging.

I feel terrible for the RP'ers, because they are not going to stay subbed, but only a few that can stand being made fun of. No i'm not a RP'er, but 20 years ago and in SWG i did a little bit, until it got too serious. But Not having an RP server and an only PvP server is bad. Instances don't work the way people think, it not the same.

As for names, if anyone takes mine i'll kill them lol. or i can to the characters named family for a vote, but i doubt me or anyone lse would really qualify bearing such a great name.

We all have different things that are important to us in this game. My characters' identities are vital, and without them there's no reason to continue giving these people money. You may think otherwise, that's your right, just be respectful.

I understand how you feel. We All need to be respectful of others on these things. The Devs should probably go with whoever had that name first to be fair, but fair can be subjective right.

I have 20 characters all of whom I care about. A single forced name change on any of them will herald my last day in this game I've played since beta. I hope BW knows what they're opening by doing this.

Pretty much any person's approach I have spoken to so far. There was ample opportunity to come up with a number tag system that allows multiple names with different tags. From day one of the new merge discussion thread, people said that they don't want to lose names.

If a single of my over twenty main characters loses the name he had since the early days, then I will be out for good. And don't make any mistake about sunk cost fallacies. We, as in my RP friends and myself, are here for each other's company. Once one person leaves, and that might either be me or another person once she loses names, it's off to WoW for good.

Good luck. Bioware might have done some good with this move, but this can also cause a lot of backlash.

How important can your RP community be to you that'd you abandon it cause you have to rename a character?

So silly. Those that leave in a huff over this will return eventually anyway. Get real.

Since the last big server merge I've been waiting for a character name to be freed up. I lost it to a level 20 trooper that hasn't been on in YEARS. But the character still exists, not being played. I had to have an alt code in that characters name and later when they allowed a space in the name, I gave the character a last name.

While I suspect the name will still be taken after the merge, I'm sure there are some names out there that are inactive across multiple servers that will become free because of the 90 day wipe.

How important can your RP community be to you that'd you abandon it cause you have to rename a character?

 

So silly. Those that leave in a huff over this will return eventually anyway. Get real.

Once you step off your pedestal and realize not everyone cares about the same things you do, you might realize there're a lot of people to whom their character is more than just an empty shell to conduct raids or PvP, who invest in their characters, from extensive back story to character art and slaving over every conversational decision to make sure it fits the character's personality perfectly, and all of that is crowned with a name. Take that away, you'd better bet people will leave.

This is not even to mention the issues RPers will face with all the trolls from the PvE servers, but I remain cautiously optimistic that it'll be tolerable.

Once you step off your pedestal and realize not everyone cares about the same things you do, you might realize there're a lot of people to whom their character is more than just an empty shell to conduct raids or PvP, who invest in their characters, from extensive back story to character art and slaving over every conversational decision to make sure it fits the character's personality perfectly, and all of that is crowned with a name. Take that away, you'd better bet people will leave.

 

This is not even to mention the issues RPers will face with all the trolls from the PvE servers, but I remain cautiously optimistic that it'll be tolerable.

What pedestal? Think you've got that backwards. I'm not the one threatening to quit a game because I think my character names are so important

I get if you have an attachment to it but there are thousands of other players and your rights to a name aren't any more special than their's. End of the day it's just a name. Simply telling you to chill.

What pedestal? Think you've got that backwards. I'm not the one threatening to quit a game because I think my character names are so important

 

I get if you have an attachment to it but there are thousands of other players and your rights to a name aren't any more special than their's. End of the day it's just a name. Simply telling you to chill.

You're the one coyly amusing yourself at the expense of the RP community all over the forum. Anyway, this part of the discussion is unimportant.

A lot more is contained in a name than you seem to think, and it's not a question of who has a right to it. Look at WoW, how they've managed to preserve names with number tags, or even how BioWare is solving the guild name problem. That they couldn't make a similar system work for character names is absurd.

But at the end of the day, my characters' identities are tied up intrinsically in their names, and if they want to play "only one person gets it" and it's not me, I'm out. Call me selfish or whatever adjectives you'd like, that's just a fact. And at least half of my friends have said the exact same thing. They're treading into dangerous turf with the RP community and may end up losing a lot of us if they don't do this well and with minimal impact. I'm sure that's a calculated risk, though, as we've said all along we don't need server merges - that was the PvE and PvP crowds.

A poster before me also mentioned that some players have spent substantial amounts of real money for name changes, which is an excellent point. Whatever the legal obligations, and I'm sure they've covered their own arses so they don't technically have to honor anything, the only right thing to do is either give priority to those who purchased the name with CC, or refund the CC. It'd be pretty shady otherwise, and not instill confidence in them for players thinking about buying such services in the future if they're not going to be honored.

Call me selfish

Alright

I truly understand the need to merge servers, but do they not realize many of us paid cartel coins for name changes in the past? Many of us have been screwed over twice in past server merges and eventually had to pay for a name change when a space became available. That's real money and should be refunded in the shape of cartel coins.

I was Early Access, and between the 2 forced mergers I went through I literally lost 100% of my names. They shouldn't do server mergers until they fix the system to allow per account unique names instead of per server unique names. Or merge all servers into one so there is no chance of being screwed a fourth time.

Or merge all servers into one so there is no chance of being screwed a fourth time.

Frankly, if they ever needed to merge regions, the game would be in such deep [REDACTED] that character names would be the least of your worries. Also: in each region/language combination, they *are* merging all servers into one.

While I understand the attachment to ones character names, I really wonder about your names in particular, I have one server merge and later another transfer of my whole legacy behind me and out of around 40 characters there was one I had to rename and that name just was a very common name so not really a surprise.

I get it people like to name their characters after films, books and so on, but then you always have to expect others to like and use that name too.

If you really need your particular name, there still is the possibility to use `´äüí, something that for me would be worse than a new name, as I would misspell my own characters too often Or with the spaces we are allowed now, something like Kha leijo or Kha'lei'jo in any combination. With a little flexibility there are a lot of possibilities to keep a name even if it's taken in the original form.

If the particular name is the only thing keeping you here, well then it maybe is the time to just move on.

Concerning RP

For my mainly Imperials it would be quite easy to weave a name change into their story, cover identity, nickname vs name on the birth certificate, new title brings a new name, marriage, conversion to another religious cult, just as a few examples.