So the name I want is Reno. No funky characters, nothing, just Reno.

But it belongs to a Level 50 Scoundrel who has never onced logged in since I have added him to my friend's list. I'm assuming the owner was someone who quit shortly after getting to 50.

So while supposedly inactive it wont be affected by the name purge since according to the rules is above Level 30.

I expect many well too bad so sad responses to this thread and that's all fine and dandy but I feel there needs to a further investigation to whether a character has even logged in after a certain time period and if the account isn't a sub, the names should be flagged.

Is it fair to the original owner? No. But it's not fair to players who are still playing this game from Day 1 to be locked out of a name they would like.

I would like to hear yall's thoughts on the matter and whether or not you think there the name purge to extend to level 50's if the account has been active for a certain time frame.

Thank you and enjoy your P3Wx2

Reno.

So the name I want is Reno. No funky characters, nothing, just Reno.

 

But it belongs to a Level 50 Scoundrel who never has never once logged in. I'm assuming the owner was someone who quit shortly after getting to 50.

 

So while supposedly inactive it wont be affected by the name purge since according to the rules is above Level 30.

 

I expect many well too bad so sad responses to this thread and that's all fine and dandy but I feel there needs to a further investigation to whether a character has even logged in after a certain time period and if the account isn't a sub, the names should be flagged.

 

Is it fair to the original owner? No. But it's not fair to players who are still playing this game from Day 1 to be locked out of a name they would like.

 

I would like to hear yall's thoughts on the matter and whether or not you think there the name purge to extend to level 50's if the account has been active for a certain time frame.

 

Thank you and enjoy your P3Wx2

 

Reno.

I was stolen a nickname when the server merges....the guy is STILL lvl47 and NEVER EVER LOGGED AGAIN. If they give me the nicnkame that would be justice.

too bad so sad

look around your room and name yourself StrawberryMilkshake or DryerTubing.

#fineanddandy

But it belongs to a Level 50 Scoundrel who never has never once logged in.

How do you get to 50 without ever logging in? That's some impressive skills, that is.

I think the proposed system is a fair compromise. Whichever way they lean, some people are going to ***** and screamy-cry. This way the screamy-crying is spread evenly among those with the names and those without them. Personally I don't get why people obsess so over names. I lost a name I really liked in a server merge a long time ago. I made a new name and never gave it any more thought.

What? We can't say ***** now?

My sister-in-law's poodle-whippet ***** just had some puppies. What if I want to talk about that?

 

Is it fair to the original owner? No.

 

You have no right to claim the name for yourself.

What? We can't say ***** now?

 

My sister-in-law's poodle-whippet ***** just had some puppies. What if I want to talk about that?

Talking about poodle-whippets should be a bannable offense. It's basically a cat!

How do you get to 50 without ever logging in? That's some impressive skills, that is.

 

 

I think the proposed system is a fair compromise. Whichever way they lean, some people are going to ***** and screamy-cry. This way the screamy-crying is spread evenly among those with the names and those without them. Personally I don't get why people obsess so over names. I lost a name I really liked in a server merge a long time ago. I made a new name and never gave it any more thought.

Thank for pointing that out, have edited my post for better clarity to what I meant.

You have no right to claim the name for yourself.

Of course I don't. But if they don't want to even play the game for almost 2 years then they should forfeit their right to the name since it's apparent they don't care about the game anymore.

I would wager that they chose the levels they did to get the biggest impact on the naming problem right now.

If the naming problem continues or gets worse. We will probably either see the same purge again or a purge with different rules.

They are walking a very fine line between pissing off people who may come back (some people won't come back if they lost their name) and helping current players with getting a new name.

I'm fine with them leaving level 30's and higher alone (for the time being at least).

They actually want those players that haven't played since the game with live to come back at some point - and maiming all their character names is very counter-productive to that.

I know that it would definitely lessen my chances of returning to an MMO when I know that upon my return all I'll to rename every single character.

Besides, Reno is a fairly popular name - for all you know some F2P noob that just created an account manages to snatch it before you this time around.

I think as long as you are paying you should keep the name. If you unsub then maybe you lose it after a while. Maybe. But how long is fair? Not sure.

Edit: Callaron makes a good point. Hadn't thought of it like that. Oh Hell, I have no idea what the best thing to do is, I freely admit it.

I would wager that they chose the levels they did to get the biggest impact on the naming problem right now.

 

If the naming problem continues or gets worse. We will probably either see the same purge again or a purge with different rules.

 

They are walking a very fine line between pissing off people who may come back (some people won't come back if they lost their name) and helping current players with getting a new name.

Something like that.

I imagine part of their reasoning is that if they didn't get past level 30 on the character they obviously weren't very attached to them to begin with, and there is a good chance that it was an alt - or someone who lost interest in the game very quickly (and is thus very unlikely to ever come back).

The higher levels were probably people's "mains", and there are almost certainly far less of them than there are sub-level 30 characters.

I think as long as you are paying you should keep the name. If you unsub then maybe you lose it after a while. Maybe. But how long is fair? Not sure.

They could always implement a system that CoH used.

I don't remember the exacts...but it was something along the lines of characters under a certain level...attached to an inactive account for a certain period.

Their names were "purged". They didn't automatically lose the name...but if someone created a character with that name...it could be taken.

Granted...this would never free up the names of all the higher level characters of players who no longer play the game...but I think it would probably free up a good bit of names.

I'm fine with them leaving level 30's and higher alone (for the time being at least).

They actually want those players that haven't played since the game with live to come back at some point - and maiming all their character names is very counter-productive to that.

I know that it would definitely lessen my chances of returning to an MMO when I know that upon my return all I'll to rename every single character.

Besides, Reno is a fairly popular name - for all you know some F2P noob that just created an account manages to snatch it before you this time around.

Would had to have been someone from Early Access to the time I started playing in January 2012 as the name was already taken 1 month after release. Now I've continually played since then and this year I decided to see if I could contact the owner by adding them to my friends list back in March of this year but that person has not logged into that character at all from then to today.

I think as long as you are paying you should keep the name. If you unsub then maybe you lose it after a while. Maybe. But how long is fair? Not sure.

 

Edit: Callaron makes a good point. Hadn't thought of it like that. Oh Hell, I have no idea what the best thing to do is, I freely admit it.

I know the old City of Heroes had a system like that when it was still a subscriber only MMO - I think if your account was inactive for longer than... 6 months or so, there was the possibility of having your character name stolen by someone else unless the character was level 30 or higher.

So BW isn't the first one to do that, and level 30 is a pretty good limit to set.

I think that once they see how this name purge works that maybe the next time they do it, they'll remove the level restrictions.

Let's be honest... even a lvl 50 that hasn't logged in for 6-9 months needs to cough up the name for someone that's still actively playing the game.

And if you're not actively playing, if you can't be bothered to just log in at least once during that time, you don't really deserve to keep it.

Of course, subscribers should always be exempt from this because as long as you're paying for the game, you should be allowed to not play if you don't want to and still be assured that all your stuff remains undisturbed.

I would wager that they chose the levels they did to get the biggest impact on the naming problem right now.

 

If the naming problem continues or gets worse. We will probably either see the same purge again or a purge with different rules.

 

They are walking a very fine line between pissing off people who may come back (some people won't come back if they lost their name) and helping current players with getting a new name.

And to think all of this could have been avoided by implementing a Name+Surname naming requirement at launch.

Of course I don't. But if they don't want to even play the game for almost 2 years then they should forfeit their right to the name since it's apparent they don't care about the game anymore.

Just because you haven't noticed ONE character being online does not mean the whole account is inactive.

What they're doing now is a start. HOWEVER - I think they need to draw another line at a year.

Presuming the person is no longer a sub (if they are still subbing, they are "paying" to keep the names in a fashion) then if someone hasn't logged in within the past year they should lose all their names, regardless of character level.

365 days is MORE than enough time to log in at least once. There should be a courtesy email sent out 30 days before a purge letting everyone know that EVERY one of their characters will name-wiped in 30 days. If someone is considering coming back, it at least gives them an incentive to log on and see what's up, and a full month of grace time to do so.

If they don't - put those names back in the hat so that active players, who deserve the best names, can enjoy them. Sitting on a shelf HOPING that maybe someday that person will play again doesn't make economic sense and certainly is unfair to current players.

And to think all of this could have been avoided by implementing a Name+Surname naming requirement at launch.

Well, they didn't do that, so the point is moot.

Yeah, some names that people want will not be freed up. Ok. You can scream about it being unfair, but if someone got the name first, you just need to move on and let it be. Sure, it sucks a little, but there are still plenty of great names available. I'm guessing a name like "Reno" goes fast in any game. So even if it were freed up here, not guarantee that someone else wouldn't snatch it up first.

Maybe BW should look into alternatives for when there is a name dispute. Maybe anyone who wants a name should be able to challenge the name-owner to a duel. Would work like naked PvP... stats bolstered to baseline. The more skilled player gets the name.

Or they could draw names out of a hat at the next Cantina event.

Or they could do what is obviously the only sensible solution at this point: Remove all names from all toons. Have a big, name-grabbing free-for-all. If you're quick, you might get the one you want. Or you can troll others by taking any decent name. Quickest fingers and best internet connection wins.

Ultimately it's up to BiowarEA what exactly they decide. I mean, they decided that I should lose my favorite

name in that first servermerge that apparantly had no rules in place because there was a guy with my name

on the destination server, and they decided that I had to move, not him.

Am I still bitter about that? Hell yeah I am, I knew in beta that they naming system they had in place was dumb,

and with that they didn't prepare for the eventual free2play scenario. You can bet your cute behind they did for everything else.

I really hope that the guy who sits on my name (who I have never ever seen online >EVER< since the server merge)

is one of the candidates for renaming. And that I can pick up the name before anyone else.

It's really amazing when you think about it. BW set out to make a WoW clone, gameplay wise, with a star wars skin,

and they didn't even try to pick up any of the improvements other games made since WoW launched.

(Or even wow's improvements, for that matter.)

Don't get me wrong, I wanted a Biowared WoW with a Star Wars setting,

I just hoped they would actually be smart about going at it....

And now it's free2play and the cartel market is slowly sucking out all the enjoyment i have for it.

Anyway, naming: hope you get yours, hope I get mine, prospects are pretty much NIL on either scenario.

At least I have gin. What's your poison?

Just because you haven't noticed ONE character being online does not mean the whole account is inactive.

But they could very well be inactive and that's the point of this thread. If they are subbed, very well they get to keep the name but if not and they have been inactive for as long as I suspect then the point of this thread remains:

Should the current name purge go off fine and there is another afterwords, they should extend their rules to search for inactive level 50's that have been inactive for 6-12 or more months and free those names up for selection for those who still play and support the game.

Just because you haven't noticed ONE character being online does not mean the whole account is inactive.

That may be true.

Anyways...that just means the system needs to be on a character basis...and not an account basis.

Maybe it's just me...but I see no difference in being completely inactive for 2 years or not logging in a character for 2 years...when it comes to a certain character.

That still tells me that they simply do not care to play that character.