Screwed over by Bioware!

Everybod who got "screwed" says that they could have "handled it better"

I would really like to know how this could have been improved, cause I don't see a win-win scenario in this anywhere.

During the Canderous Ordo > Jedi Covenant I had to rename 1 toon...I went "Oh, whatever" and actually went on with life...and the funny part...I was mega lazy when I made that Sent. so I used random name generator, so no losses all around..

That's called being lucky.

Of my original 8 characters I had to change names on 6 of them and change the legacy name on the first round. Then on the second round of merges I had to change some again.

What I don't get in this is that there didn't seem to be any eye for seniority as in who got the name first but being merged onto an existing server meant that whoever was on that server already got first dibs basically.

That is something they could've handled better.

All MMOs suffer from server closures. This should've been the expectation. Companies just overhype themselves out of reality and that to me is the biggest mistake Bioware made in all of this: They had unrealistic expectations for this game from the beginning. If they had had more of a sense of reality before the hammer hit and woke them up, a lot of things could've been prevented right from the start. I've seen server merges in other games and there the person with the oldest toon got to keep the name. That is much fairer in the whole point of early start where the biggest advantage people choose to go for is the chance of getting the names you like. All in all it just seems to me BW never considered what would be needed if things went south because they they convinced themselves this game would be the biggest game ever and nothing could go wrong. So when it did, it took em months to admit it and then they were panicking over what to do. Now this was my impression, but that's what it looked like and the server merges, though necessary could've been more considerate to people who played from the start to claim their names. They didn't do that here.

Now I did get pissed off at the time and I did quit SWTOR for a few months but not just because of this. There was much more that made SWTOR just not fun to play for me anymore. I came back 3-4 months later and the game has improved significantly so that's all good, but I do sometimes still wish I could've kept some of my old names.

To be fair I was mostly ticked off because I couldn't keep my legacy name at first and then they made it so legacy names were no longer unique. That really got to me. It was like anything that made my toons unique was just taken away. Again they underestimated the consequences of such choices, because they didn't see the realities out there.

Sure they talk about metrics and see people's behaviour but these numbers don't explain what people's motivations are. I think in that respect it was better what GW2 did (although I really don't like that game for the most part), where characters are unique across all servers. That way, server merges never cause conflicts, nor server transfers.

It pays to look outside of the walls of your own little fantasy world from time to time. Now, I don't mean that as harsh as it may sound, but my main gripe with BW is just that. They put on pink sunglasses and everything looked rosy to them. The population had to be cut down to half before they were willing to accept they were wrong about it. Interestingly it wasn't so much the bugs and all that, that made people leave, bu the way everything was handled. I dare say they have gotten better at this but as far as the game losing so many players and having to go f2p in part, that cannot just be blamed on the market trends. It was the feeling a lot of people had that BW didn't take their players seriously. Not really.

So when it comes to things like this, character names and such, a developer needs to realise the emotional impact this has on a good part of the players. I am not saying a majority because I don't know how many, but it was a big discussion on the forums and in game at the time, so people did feel unpleasantly surprised by how things went.

But as I say also, the game has improved quite a bit and I enjoy it a lot now for months again and I do agree with people who say it is in the past now and it's time to get over it. I recognise the OP's feelings as I felt them myself, but I also want to say to him that this is water under the bridge. It's something that happened more than half a year ago and it cannot be reversed as such. That's the reality.

Double post

You're obviously not a SW fan beyond the movies. Darth Bane implemented the "Rule of Two", meaning there would only be a Master and an Apprentice to rule at one time.

As for the OP, you're whining is growing tiresome so please **** and let it go. You ignored the rules and are butthurt about a name you lost, a name that isn't legal to use mind you.

You're unoriginal names aren't epic and never will be. Try using your head, you know that lump 3 feet above your *****, and come up with something original for once in your life.

For what it's worth, there is no indication that characters are timestamped for when they are created.

This also doesn't REALLY adress the problem for one of two reasons.
A) it is entirely possible that those other characters were created before yours and you still would have had to change your names.
B) It actually makes more unhappy customers. Even if "Seniority" is employed the bulk of transferring players would not be able to save all of their characters. So now you still have upset customers, but now you have players who don't have to transfer and have to change their names to accomadate somebody else.

Nope.

With the exclusion of the 1 toon I mentioned, it's called I was being original. When I make characters, I tend ot not use ones I did in other games, or use names that have been used. I make up brand new, actually "unique" names that I still cannot pronouce because I made then so far from the norms of plain and simple.

Managed to keep my Pvtmeatshield commandon name since BETA... soooo happy about that

While I sympathize with the OP as he depended on a tier 1 or tier 2 support person. It is pretty clear that he had a number of doubts on whether it would work.

Especially since he had tried to recreate 'Bane' on his original server once he had moved the original and got the invalid name response.

Personally I would be mad at myself - not at Bioware. Take responsibility for your actions. Everybody is a victim these days...

I was sharing this with my wife and she totally missed the point.

She thought the names were awesome, commenting: "But where's Turbo, Nitro and Ice?"

And she has an amazingly good point. With this bag of cheese in your loading screen, you pretty much have to start up the American Gladiators guild. Heck, I'd even front you the 5000 credits to set it up. See... if you embrace the cheese --own the cheese-- and tag these guys as icons of 90's faux-cool, then they would actually approach being Epic.

(My wife is great)