Guilty_Cross Posted July 31, 2020 Share Posted July 31, 2020 what the hell? all but one of my characters are forcing me to change their name. i cant rename them to the same name because apparently its "unavailable". Names that ive used for every game i play and are hard to get and they just took it from me and gave it to someone else? I really dont even know where i should be posting this but im infuriated. it aint like theyre lvl 1 alts either. most of them are lvl 30s 40s and up. all my characters identities have been robbed and this is the first time any game has done this to me. i hate to rant or sound angry, i really would just like an explanation and some help getting the names back if at all possible. as ive said im returning after a few years of being away so i dont know whats happened to the game. any help would be greatly appreciated. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SteveTheCynic Posted July 31, 2020 Share Posted July 31, 2020 what the hell? all but one of my characters are forcing me to change their name. i cant rename them to the same name because apparently its "unavailable". Names that ive used for every game i play and are hard to get and they just took it from me and gave it to someone else? I really dont even know where i should be posting this but im infuriated. If your "few years" included not playing in the tail end of 2017, then you got bitten by the server merge that happened in November of that year. Essentially, if two characters on the new server had the same name, but came from different old servers, BioWare had to do *something* to resolve it. The name limits are such that there's no way for them to guarantee being able to e.g. just tack on the legacy name as a surname (and because legacy names aren't unique even *within* a server, that wouldn't work if your Eltera'inskis [Argentis] from Darth Nihilus collided with my Eltera'inskis [Argentis] from Mantle of the Force(1)). In the end, there's no truly "good" way to handle name collisions in server merges, and I think they did the least bad they could. Active characters got priority over inactive ones, and there were well-defined, if perhaps buggy, criteria for resolving conflicts between active characters. In addition, a few weeks before the merge, they unlocked the names of some inactive lower-level non-subscribed characters, so you may have been bitten by someone *innocently* naming a character one of those names while you were away. While that may sound unlikely, the fact that you call them "hard to get" suggests that they are something that lots of people like to use, and that raises the chances of someone unintentionally (i.e. not meaning to take it away from you) getting the name while you were away. Combine that with the effects from the merge itself, and it's easy to see how they could all be lost. it aint like theyre lvl 1 alts either. most of them are lvl 30s 40s and up. all my characters identities have been robbed and this is the first time any game has done this to me. i hate to rant or sound angry, i really would just like an explanation and some help getting the names back if at all possible. as ive said im returning after a few years of being away so i dont know whats happened to the game. any help would be greatly appreciated. I think I've explained it. Getting the names back may be difficult, and would certainly depend on some level of (polite) negotiations with the current holders. (1) That's a real example, although in that case, both of the characters were mine anyway. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JediQuaker Posted July 31, 2020 Share Posted July 31, 2020 Crabby, before coffee response: **** happens. Get over it. 🙂 After coffee: Yes, sometimes you need to rename characters. In my case, I had to rename a couple a few years ago when I changed from PvP server to a PvE one. (That's how long ago that was.) Luckily, I didn't have to rename any after the last server merger. One way to mitigate some of the 'damage' is to simply find alternate spellings, or to add apostrophes( ' ), etc. For example, "Sunny" could become "Sunnii" or "Sun'ny". In any case, the server merger is done now. Your best bet is to just suck it up, rename your characters, and get on with it. 🙂 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bxvx Posted July 31, 2020 Share Posted July 31, 2020 This happened to me not all my toons but a couple, but you can make the same name just add a special character to it for an apostrophe in between the letters. I kind of do that now all my toons have generally the same name but done different ways. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eldefail Posted August 4, 2020 Share Posted August 4, 2020 I don't know how long it's been since you've played. People already covered the name purging and server transfer issues. I thought I'd point out that names can now contain apostrophes and spaces, so if yours don't, you could try using the same name but adding another name before or after it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mubrak Posted August 4, 2020 Share Posted August 4, 2020 The names were handled as fair as possible: First, all characters below level 10 that weren't played in 90 days were automatically flagged for a rename. For the rest subs had priority over non-subs and after that it was decided by which character was played more. This was communicated a month before the merges happened, so everyone had the chance to log in to all their chars, and even tell RL friends who weren't playing SWTOR at the time. It sucks to lose character names, but that is the risk you take when leaving an MMO for "a few years". BW had to merge the servers and was priorizing the active (paying) players over those who might never come back. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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