Screwed over by Bioware!

But here's a real kicker. I'm a pre-order, been on the boards since Oct. 2008 and i got special treatment. I was invited to every open beta weekend and i played them. I started playing 5 days ahead of many others, not 4 or 3 or 2 but 5 days. I even got this really ugly ( my opinion ) Black and yellow crystal. Also having had a sub since launch i have a slew of Cartel Coins. What they said i would get for the pre-order i got.

With that being said, the name i post under was the name of my main character i started at launch ( i liked the idea that my forum name match my in game character) and i lost the name during the 1st round of mergers. I was upset at first, so i can understand where people are comming from in that respect. I can also state that having been here since 2008 their idea of a naming policy was discussed prior to launch ad infinitum and they assured all that they had the situation under control ( i wish we could access the pre-launch boards ), apparently they didn't and it should never had come to this, but it has and we are where we are and as someone else has already stated we can either accept it or vote with our wallets.

Oh and btw i'm not accepting it just waiting for another games beta to launch.

Got it in one. Guess there's a first thing for everything.

How long do I have to wait for the first time that your little head isn't telling your big head what to do?

I lost all my original names too during first merge.
And all these other owners of my names are still level #1 toons, 9 months later.

Yeah, we're in the same frame of mind about that matter. The thing is, if I wasn't the GM of a big and active guild, I'd be gone a long time ago, along with my wallet. I'm sticking around over a sense of "civic duty" to take care of the people in my guild, which is why my resentment in this matter with being screwed out of all my names keep growing with time, rather than fading. I consider running an active raiding guild as being something I do for the community. It's upaid work, and there's a lot of work involved. I'm not asking for anything but a fair shake in return from Bioware.

Our guild was completely annihilated by the first merge. We remade the guild on Nightmare Lands, but we lost half the people in the process (granted some we inactive). The people we had left mostly had new names and we barely recognized eachother anymore. The next merge was relatively painless. A few people lost a few more names, but it was nowhere near as bad as the first merge. Our guild has survived a lot, and I'm not giving up on them now. lol

Besides. Maybe Bioware will wise up and implement a new naming system if we just get loud enough in the forums for them to notice that there's a problem here! Considering the structure with super-servers and 12 character slots per account (or more), they need to do something and they need to do it fast. The names people are running around with these days makes me wanna cry. It takes me several minutes to figure out how to spell some of them when trying to invite people to a group/raid.

Hold your breath.

Jeeeeezus...

Talk about first world problems. This is absurd.

"Sorry doesn't make up for the fact that they were unable to give the name back".

Why doesn't it? You have no damages. There is no irreparable harm done to you. You're no worse off than anyone else who doesn't have characters named Bane or Reaper.

So why doesn't "sorry" make up for your self-fabricated dilemma? You don't get to make people care about a topic that the vast majority of people don't care about or feel immense guilt at something that the rest of us consider trivial and inconsequential. In short, relax.

He *is* worse off. He had the name, and because someone in Customer Service told him one thing that turned out to be blatantly false, he lost his name. You don't get to "be wrong" in Customer Service; you're legally held accountable for everything that you say and/or do. And the "damage" is, in fact, irreparable if it's a blacklisted name. It may seem a trivial issue, but it clearly means something to him, and from what information we've been given, BioWare really ought to grant him the name (even if it's in the form of simply restoring his previous alt who had it), or some kind of minor compensation (which admittedly, probably wouldn't be much, just some little something in-game, maybe a few Cartel Coins).

As far as legal requirements... it's very much a grey area. Like I said, digital rights are very much uncharted territory, as few people are willing to go to going over intangible objects. Still, a simple act of acknowledgement, a formal apology, and some sort of resolution would probably do a lot more good for their image, than the same amount of effort spent ignoring it will hurt it.

Sorry but if a name is forbidden it should have been deleted long ago, they should have made you rename that character from the beginning, so the fact that you kept it that long was just pure luck I think.

I joined the early access from day 1 and I got the name "Bastila". After that I was also lucky enough to get the legacy name "Shan" first. I thought it was weird that they let me make that name and sure enough, about 1-2 months later they made me rename her - it's their policy and nothing I wasn't expecting. So I just renamed to "Bastilla". Just let it go man. Oh, they also made me rename my legacy too :/