Screwed over by Bioware!

This may be a topic that's lost in history to most active players today, but I will never forget!

My first experience playing this game was at the BETA stage. I played for two minutes as a Trooper and then I minimized the game to pre-order the Collector's Edition. I've played the game continuously since then, and I love it. But, the server-merges really screwed me over, as it did with a lot of people.

The reason I pre-ordered this game was to get in on the early-access so that I can get some really cool names for my characters. I didn't just get cool names. I got iconic, epic names. Here's a screenshot of my character selection screen way, way back... on a server named Bao-Dur: http://i1128.photobucket.com/albums/...Character7.jpg

With the first server merge, there was no system in place to allow people like myself to keep (some of) our names. You simply had the choice to leave your server, or get stuck on a damned tombstone! So, naturally, I left Bao-Dur as fast as I could... so that I might potentially get to keep my names or at the very least get something not completely terrible. I'm sure a lot of people were thinking the same during the days of the first merge.

When the second merge happened, there was finally some kind of system in place to ensure that if you were an active player and all that, you might get to keep your character name(s). But, at that point, my epic character names were all gone. Infact, the only name I had left was Bane (how?), and I lost Bane when Bioware customer service *ensured* me that the name would become available again after I rerolled the character with that name. I was told that the name would be up for grabs again as soon as I deleted my current character with that name. The reason I wanted to reroll was that I already had a level 50 Guardian at that point, and the character named Bane was a level 20 Sith Warrior. I was so worried about losing that name that I actually contacted customer service to doublecheck and verify that the name would still be available after I deleted my character. A valid concern after having tried to make a character named Bane on another server only to be told that the name was invalid (as in not allowed). I deleted Bane, and as I suspected... I was not allowed to create a new character with that name. Even though Bioware's very own customer service told me I could. Naturally, I contacted the customer service again, in a fit of rage (yet still very polite) asking why they lied to me. The response I got was that, after checking out the situation more carefully, the name "Bane" was on the prohibited list. If I hadn't decided to reroll my warrior as marauder after being lied to by Bioware customer service, I would have still had at least one of my original names.

My main character is my Commando. He used to be called Reaper. I've been actively playing the game ever since the early access, raiding, raid-leading and then becoming a GM of a very active raiding guild that's still active to this day, and will remain active in the coming expansion. I've done a lot of good work for the community in this game, and I will never forget how Bioware repaid the favor. I lost all my character names in the first merge. I might have let that matter rest, but then Bioware's customer service outright lied to my face... making me lose the last name that meant anything to me. The pathetic excuses offered by the customer service people after realizing how badly they screwed me over still makes me chuckle madly to this day.

I'm sure I'm not the only one that's been screwed over like this. Bioware should have had all the rules about who gets to keep their names in place for the first merge, but no... they didn't.

These days, all I see ingame are screwed up names like "PõÙltrymân" etc. It takes me 15 minutes to figure out how to invite certain people to my groups! At the very least, Bioware should have adopted the Guild Wars 2 way of naming characters, as in allowing long names with spaces so that we could make names like "Bender the Offender" or "Grim Reaper" and so forth... instead of the Legacy crap. Whatever surname you choose for one of the characters won't fit the next one, or character of the opposite faction. With this superserver lagfest crap they're peddling, there's too many people with too many character on the servers for anyone to get a good name for their character.

EDIT: Let me just make it clear that this isn't about whether or not people think the names are epic or not. This is about how Bioware treats their paying customers. Like I said, we all got shafted. I'm in no way unique there. But the way I lost that name Bane because of Bioware's incompetent customer service was simply enfuriating. Add the loss of all my other names to that, and the fact that we even lost our guildname in the end, and you have yourself one upset customer. I've never played another MMO where the players were treated like this.

Which of his names violated the policy? I'm genuinely curious...they all seemed rather inane to me.

I'd like to just throw out an observation.

Hoodling is automatically assuming that he made the characters on his server, before the other person on that server, made theirs.

It is entirely possible that whoever owns those characters was also a pre-order guy who did exactly what he did and may have even gotten it sooner and was actually able to level those characters up...

But it's easier to just assume the "me first" mentality that obviously he's the one that deserves those names and not the person who doesn't have to move from one server to another and may value their character names just as much as he does.

I'm not sure if only a few people are getting the point of this thread or if most are and are just trolling... It doesn't really matter what the names are, other than the fact that they were important to him and that he lost one of them directly because of something he was told by a representative of Bioware. Now because the name violates the ToS, Bioware could've forced him to change the name whenever, but that isn't what happened, so that is unrelated too.

I think that two things should happen here:

1. Bioware should apologise. Hey, sorry, we made a mistake. Nothing big, but acknowledging a mistake is pretty important to me.
2. Bioware should enforce their name policies. Anyone who currently has a name that violates the name creating procedure should have to change it. I think it's only fair.

Seems unlikely that anyone who has read this far will care about this, but no need to mock what the OP feels is important. I'm sure something is important to you that others don't care about. I have an irrational liking of pets that I know most others really don't care about, and regardless of what others say I'd be annoyed if someone messed with them

Hooray for civil discussions! Peace on Forums!

Thank you! Finally someone that understands.

Sarcastic, lecturing, patronizing... can we be best friends forever and ever from now on?

Bane.

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Darth_Bane

Actually the reason the OP is complaining is because he deleted a character of that name and was unable to recreate it.

. And don't tell me you wouldn't want to have a character named "Darth Doom" or "Captain Maverick" etc.