Jump to content

Want to come back to this game but name is taken?


Blankchild

Recommended Posts

It's silly, but in MMOS the name is really important to me. I came back and because of a some server merges I can no longer use the name I wanted. Is there a time limit on inactive players losing their name, or is that name just not available anymore to me?

The merge in question was probably the one in November 2017, and when two (or more) characters with the same name got merged onto the same new server, they had to resolve it somehow. What they decided in the end(1) was that the character with the most recent gameplay (the exact criteria weren't explained in full detail) won out. If you weren't playing during that time, your character lost its name, and the one that was being played kept the name.

 

So the name is *now* unavailable because the other character (from a different source server) is still using it. It's nothing specific to you. (The name isn't available to *anyone*...)

 

(1) Yes, they could have decided other things, but any "one of them wins and keeps the name" solution is completely free of side-effects on other game systems, as compared to, e.g. adding "@Premerge-server" onto the displayed name (as they did for guilds). For guilds, it doesn't matter because there's no game system that requires the player to type the name (you can't /whisper a *guild*), while for player characters it matters a *lot*.

 

Imagine having to type:

/whisper Eltera'inskis@Mantle of the Force:

every time you wanted to send a private communication with my character of that name who was previously on MotF, as distinct from "Eltera'inskis@Darth Nihilus", my character of the same name who was on DN. (Later on, one of them got in the way of the Delete cannon, but for other reasons.)

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

The merge in question was probably the one in November 2017, and when two (or more) characters with the same name got merged onto the same new server, they had to resolve it somehow. What they decided in the end(1) was that the character with the most recent gameplay (the exact criteria weren't explained in full detail) won out. If you weren't playing during that time, your character lost its name, and the one that was being played kept the name.

 

So the name is *now* unavailable because the other character (from a different source server) is still using it. It's nothing specific to you. (The name isn't available to *anyone*...)

 

(1) Yes, they could have decided other things, but any "one of them wins and keeps the name" solution is completely free of side-effects on other game systems, as compared to, e.g. adding "@Premerge-server" onto the displayed name (as they did for guilds). For guilds, it doesn't matter because there's no game system that requires the player to type the name (you can't /whisper a *guild*), while for player characters it matters a *lot*.

 

Imagine having to type:

/whisper Eltera'inskis@Mantle of the Force:

every time you wanted to send a private communication with my character of that name who was previously on MotF, as distinct from "Eltera'inskis@Darth Nihilus", my character of the same name who was on DN. (Later on, one of them got in the way of the Delete cannon, but for other reasons.)

 

Ah, well I guess I'll just play FF14 or something else. Thanks for the reply!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 9/25/2022 at 5:16 PM, Blankchild said:

 

Ah, well I guess I'll just play FF14 or something else. Thanks for the reply!

It seems rather silly to quit any game simply because your favourite name is taken. Have you considered just spelling the name differently, such as Phred instead of Fred?

  • Like 1
  • Haha 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 hours ago, djbauer said:

Fred The'second

That specific one won't work <<<=== Voice Of Experience.

Any name that contains "The" as a separate element, including sub-words set off from the rest by apostrophe or dash, is rejected by the in-game censor.  (I could create Havelock Thedane, but not Havelock The'dane, and something makes me doubt that dane was the element it rejected.)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

×
×
  • Create New...