Can We Talk About Name Availability For A Minute

[Gant.3904]

I'm one of those players that took a 4 year break from the game and have finally come back. I can understand both sides of the debate regarding inactive account names being released, but personally I'd be somewhat annoyed if I'd lost my character's names. Only somewhat annoyed though, I'd just make a new name and move on quickly. There are plenty of ways to use a name you want, just add bits to the name and get creative, so rather than "John Smith" it could be "John Smith of the North" for example.

[Khisanth.2948]

@"Danikat.8537" said:A bit like real life. I can't count how many times I've been told Katy is a nickname and cannot be a full, legal name but it didn't stop my parents putting it on my birth certificate. I've been told in British culture everyone only has 1 first name, but I've met women called Sarah Jane and Mary-Beth. I've met numerous people who have been told their name is not a real name (yes, people are that rude) but somehow it doesn't change the fact that it is their name. Lots of cultures have rules for names, but there's always exceptions.

Heh the rules for names in real life is quite a bit less restrictive than in game.

One very obvious example is that you are allowed to have numbers in your legal name but not in GW2.

---

Oh right besides the fact that this solves nothing because all those "desireable" names could just get taken less than a day after the change there is also the fact that the game asks for a character when doing password recovery.

@kharmin.7683 said:Does taking a character name delete that character? If so, then what about those players who have been away and then return to find their character missing? And the loss of birthday presents or whatever else might have been on that character or in inventory?

That should be unnecessary. It could just use a similar procedure to forced name change.

[Zeivu.3615]

A lot of online games don't even allow you to use special characters. Gw1 forced you to use at least two words/string of letters separated with a space. There are still plenty of names available and you are not entitled to take those from us who have been here since beta. Get creative.

[Bloodstealer.5978]

@Teratus.2859 said:

@Bloodstealer.5978 said:

@Teratus.2859 said:

@Bloodstealer.5978 said:

@Teratus.2859 said:

@Danikat.8537 said:

@Teratus.2859 said:

@Genesis.8572 said:

@Teratus.2859 said:Creativity only goes so far.. and some people like myself for example are significantly invested into giving our character natural sounding lore fitting names and honestly despise having to throw a name out entirely because it's taken or change a few letters around or spell them akwardly to the point they look and sound stupid.Which other people are capable of easily achieving even now, as I and others have experienced as well.

Not everyone has the same rules with thier names like I said.You may be fine with adding a double letter or changing something but others place more value in their names and are not willing to butcher them like that.

What do you do if there's another barrier to the name you want, other than someone else getting it first?

For example I really wanted to call my weaver Rinkhal Stormbringer, a name which ties heavily into the backstory I created for him and his personality. It's

perfect

for him. But I couldn't use it. Why? It's 20 characters long.

I suppose I could have begged Anet to change the rules, to let us use 20 characters, after all it's just 1 more letter so it shouldn't cause any problems right? (Cue someone explaining how 19 characters fits perfectly into X bits of data or some such thing.) But regardless of whether it's possible it would have left me waiting indefinitely for a change which may or may not happen before I could make my new character.

As Mew said.. extended the character limit is far more reasonable than stripping away dead names from dead accounts.. and probably easier too.I'd have no problem with increasing the cap to 25-30 characters in all honesty.

So, regardless of how attached I was to that name I went back to the drawing board (or more precisely a series of post-it notes) and went looking for another name. I stumbled across the Afrikaans word Akkedis (which means lizard) and...I don't know why but it stuck. I decided even if I didn't use it in his name that would be his real first name for RP purposes. But eventually I decided on Akkedis de Rinkhal, a name which I like at least as much as my original idea.

It's the same process when a name I want is taken. I understand being attached to a name (that's why some of us are so against this idea) but the only time I've gotten so attached to one that I wouldn't find something else instead is when I've had it for years. I've got 2 characters (not counting Akkedis) where the name I first wanted was taken (one going back to GW1) so I changed it slightly, and now I wouldn't change either of them even if I could, and I'd be extremely upset if someone else took them away from me. (Which is possible, under this proposed system since one is a lore appropriate asuran name and the other is a reference to a popular character with just 1 letter changed to make an equally meaningful name which regularly gets mistaken for the original.)

As I said i'm not arguing for taking names but for changing things so players can use dupicates of the same name.But in regards to taking names from dead accounts a lot of what i'm seeing as against that decision seems to stem from the assumption that names are going to be taken away from regular players who go on short breaks.. even though the OP stated that the duration required to loose a name would be years of never logging in.I honestly doubt many people who have not logged into the game in 2 years even think about coming back.. and if they did I doubt they would care about their old characters or their names all that much.Many who do come back tend to just start new characters anyway as they don't remember how to play their old ones nor are they familiar with any of the changes.

You would be surprised how many players take extended breaks in games then come back.. sometimes those break are unplanned but necessary, it's not just about players not liking GW2 enough to play it anymore.Whilst extending the number of character is as others say, a reasonable request, it would still not satisfy the "you got what I want, it's not fair, give it to me" attitude.Bottom line there is simply NO justification for trying to take other players character names other than " I want BoB and only BoB, GIVE ME BoB cos it's not fair someone else's character is called BoB!!"

I take them myself from time to time.

See you're arguing from a place that suggests people are angry about names used by regular players and that they feel entitled to those names when it's not like that.It's specifically been said by the person who started this thread that what we need is a some kind of new system to handle names better and that this is a discussion worth having.Which is something I definitely agree with.

Taking old unused names from inactive accounts is only one of the options people have suggested and that seems to be the only one people are even talking about here.And some like yourself are even stripping that down to "give me your character name" which is a really unfair way to look at it not to mention it doesn't add anything constructive or positive to the discussion.Not everyone is arguing for what you say they are.. I've already put forward my alternative solution to the problem, yet I keep getting replies like yours when i've made it clear i'm not for that solution myself either.

No, sorry, but your the one doing arguing .. extended long term breaks are not just about needing a break there are many other reasons it happens.The person who started this thread wanted a specific name that he/she is frustrated about not being able to have then it progressed into some fantasy friends list notion that said name has not been around for a few years.. or has that person being monitoring that name since launch.. no of course not and cannot.Every account whether they are absent in game for any length of time or not are still accounts that have the potential to generate revenue for ANET, heck the welcome back event is right there in our faces.On the flip side even if character names were to become relisted what happens when the one you still want isn't.. gunna ask for more ways and reasons to steal them of others.. nah - the system is fine, get creative or put up I say.Some players' self perceived entitlement has no bounds sometimes I think.

Yes i'm arguing for something i've said multiple times I don't support.. because that makes perfect sense.

Are you even reading my comments or just on here looking to argue with people and slander them as entitled?Because i'm starting to think you're ignoring just about everything i'm saying to do exactly that.

To you it makes sense and so you argue with anyone that does not conform to your belief.. I and others in this thread have repeatedly attempted to counter the reasons for taking names from other players. That is not arguing or name calling it is simply countering the "it's not fair someone else has something I want, so I want it cos I can't be bothered to try and think outside the box a little".I and others have made very clear arguments for not wanting ANET to take this path, which I believe has the potential to cause more harm than good imo. You on the other hand are perhaps the one being ignorant to the facts and counters that have been presented, and instead seek to argue no matter what.

[Killerassel.2197]

I had an idea. I mostly dislike the title + name idea for my asuras, because they would constantly be addressed with that title as if it actually were their name. Since I'm uncreative right now, let's take an NPC as example: Archivist Grep.

While players would get it and use only the actual name - unless you are named Xx Grep Xx, then I will call you exactly that until you admit that it sounds rediculous as a name. But I'd be terribly annoyed if NPCs would call me Commander Archivist Grep. Or Lightbringer Agent Wattever.

My suggestion: allow nicknames, to override how NPCs address you. Unlike the split between first and last name already suggested earlier in this thread, I'd even suggest to make it freely chosable. May or may not be displayed to players. But if so, it shouldn't make the actual name invisible for the reasons already stated by others in this thread. And since it isn't the actual name as considered for game mechanics (party invite, mail, ...) it wouldn't need to be unique.

For me it would open up "surnames" to asuras and salads.

Probably many players would still be unhappy to be seen by others with such a title or lore-wise unfitting surname.

Regarding 19 letters: I've had to rename a charr because of this limit. I had thought out the character's backstory and what a fitting name would be but didn't consider the length. During character creation I had to improvise. Luckily charr names are still available. Especially when using non-english warband names.

[Mewcifer.5198]

@"Killerassel.2197" said:I had an idea. I mostly dislike the title + name idea for my asuras, because they would constantly be addressed with that title as if it actually were their name. Since I'm uncreative right now, let's take an NPC as example: Archivist Grep.

While players would get it and use only the actual name - unless you are named Xx Grep Xx, then I will call you exactly that until you admit that it sounds rediculous as a name. But I'd be terribly annoyed if NPCs would call me Commander Archivist Grep. Or Lightbringer Agent Wattever.

My suggestion: allow nicknames, to override how NPCs address you. Unlike the split between first and last name already suggested earlier in this thread, I'd even suggest to make it freely chosable. May or may not be displayed to players. But if so, it shouldn't make the actual name invisible for the reasons already stated by others in this thread. And since it isn't the actual name as considered for game mechanics (party invite, mail, ...) it wouldn't need to be unique.

For me it would open up "surnames" to asuras and salads.

Probably many players would still be unhappy to be seen by others with such a title or lore-wise unfitting surname.

Regarding 19 letters: I've had to rename a charr because of this limit. I had thought out the character's backstory and what a fitting name would be but didn't consider the length. During character creation I had to improvise. Luckily charr names are still available. Especially when using non-english warband names.

NPCs rarely, if ever, use your character's name, it's always just "Lightbringer" or "commander"

[Killerassel.2197]

These days, yes. Especially everything voiced - because it has to. But in written dialog it's not that rare. I've been addressed by NPCs with a fixed title (e.g. commander), but also by name, race or class.

Edit: Also in mails from NPCs. Some are adressed to a generic title but a lot start with the name.

[robertthebard.8150]

@Teratus.2859 said:

@kettering.6823 said:

@Teratus.2859 said:

@Genesis.8572 said:

@Teratus.2859 said:

The biggest problem for me I find is Sylvari and Asura characters as they specifically only have singular names unlike Humans and Norns which have both first and second naems, I do not enjoy incorporating titles into my character names that conflict with who that character is and where they came from either so it becomes increadibly difficult to find sigular fitting names for these characters.Scarlet

Briar

. Sylvari can have or make surnames for themselves, especially now as they encounter more races that use the equivalent of surnames. They too may opt to adopt them such that they can distinguish themselves from their fellow sylvari.

Scarlet Briar was not her real name, all Sylvari are born with singular names only.Scarlet reinvented herself and took a fake name when she betrayed the world to the Elder Dragons.The vast majority of Sylvari keep their birth names and since our PC's are neither race traitors or evil giving them second names neither makes sense nor works from a lore perspective.Not a big deal for most but if that matters to you then it matters to you.

Absolutely untrue. I have three Sylvari characters with 'surnames' - Saoirse Foxglove, Fionnlagh Celandine, and Caoimhe Larkspur. Each and every one of those are flowers, flowers that have meanings to their character. None of them are 'race traitors' nor evil; Saoirse loves foxgloves, so tacked one onto the end of her name for fun. Fionnlagh is a revenant who, according to his story, saw a man in his dream and in the mists who he knew he had to find. Celandine was a plant he saw in both his dream and the mists; it has a great meaning to him. Caoimhe really likes humans and wanted to mimic them, so she picked her favourite flower and made it her 'last name'. If you're a stickler for lore, there are plenty of reasons you could come up with for your Sylvari to have a last name, or even just a second name.

This again all comes down to not being creative enough. 'But lore!' is not really a valid reason when there are many ways you can work around the lore.

No it comes from difference of opinion and how far you want to go with fitting your character names.There's nothing wrong with you wanting to give your Sylvari last names or if you want to add meaning to them.But in the game world, born from the tree Sylvari have only the one name.Every Sylvari NPC in the game including Scarlet was born with only a singular name.Every player is free to do what their like with their characters, if you want to RP that way more power to you.But some of us like to tie our characters as closely as possible into the game world and it's lore, and that does mean we restrict our names to the same or as close to similar rules to what Anet used when creating NPC names for each race.I only used the terms race traitors and evil because the only Sylvari to break from traditional naming convention was Scarlet who was both evil and a race traiter, or at least she's seen that why by her people due to her actions that caused Mordremoth to wake and enslave many of them.It wasn't an attack on yours or anyone elses characters.. in the game lore there is only one commander, in my game that is my PC.. and every other player doesn't exist in my story or is some nameless random adventurer who's not important or relevant to it.

This is a self imposed limitation, a single name for a Sylvari, and so, should have a self implemented solution. It means that you're either going to have to become really creative, or hit a name generator to find something you like. The "I only like this name, and so, since the player that has it hasn't logged in for (insert assumed time here, since barring very few exceptions, there is really no way to know) you should strip it so I can use it" argument falls flat. In swtor, I had like 60 characters, across a couple of accounts on a couple of servers, and no problems coming up with names. In DDO, I had close to 60 characters on one server, over multiple accounts, and no problems with names. However, limiting yourself because "lore" is self imposed. Nothing in the character creator limits characters to one name only. Another similar solution is to use a space, but use it as a hyphen, or an apostrophe.

[Handsel.2891]

@"tinymurder.5791" said:I feel like the people who keep saying, "YOU DON'T TOUCH OTHER PLAYERS ACCOUNTS!!!" could stand to add a little nuance to their position.

That was me. In both instances of shouting, the rest were others quoting me. And it is as you said: I got frustrated of this notion being ignored in the responses. And if you search through the thread, I do believe that in other posts I managed to come across with a bit more nuance... Then again, I don't want to force anyone to do research on me, so:

• Anet has always encouraged players to play in their own pace through their business model. No subscription means you can play however long you want, leave for however long you want and come back whenever you want, without feeling behind. This was the case in GW1, this is one of the main draws of GW2, at least for me.
• I do believe that if they decided to do what OP suggested they would only lose players to please some of the existing ones. Definitely wouldn't gain new ones. Somewhere I mentioned account privacy, as well, and the seemingly effortless disregard thereof needed to do such a thing.
• Some claim to know that the names they want are on accounts that haven't logged in for years. I found this one a bit shaky. This information is very hard to obtain unless of course they know those people who haven't logged in because they are in the same guild or - with limited transparency - they are mutual friends. This immediately diminishes the 'hoards-of-inactive-accounts-with-good-names' argument to the much more likely 'I-know-a-guildie-who-was-last-on-in-2013-and-has-a-cool-name-on-one-of-their-toons'.
• There are some alternative ideas to have more freedom when naming your characters. Mine was to have more fields for names at creation and to be able to choose which fields are shown in game. Not the best idea, probably cannot even be implemented, but there it is. And it doesn't require Anet to effectively break into accounts thus breaking with their tradition.
• Bringing up other MMOs as examples in support of OP's post is not a valid argument, I think. Especially if the examples have different business models from Anet's. Sub based and free-to-play MMOs rely on continuous revenue from subscriptions and micro transactions to keep their ships afloat. So they use every incentive to get more people to log in. Anet doesn't need to do that, at least not in such a desperate way.

Sorry for the long rambling, but I felt like being called out on my admittedly obnoxious shouting.

[Handsel.2891]

@tinymurder.5791 said:Honestly, I feel the person who started this thread was trolling, since they literally haven't posted in here since making the original post.

Let's all take a moment to contemplate this.I'm retiring from this thread.

[Obtena.7952]

@Mewcifer.5198 said:

@ROMANG.1903 said:Honnestly, I'd only like to be able to check the avalaibility of a name without having to end the character creation. I like noting several names before picking one and being unable to check which ones are avalaible makes this impossible...

Also, what if we had to pick a second name? Something that everyone had to pick, but you could then hide it if you wanted to. That way, people can get the same name without creating confusion?

Some sort of name checker would be nice.

THAT is a reasonable ask ... I too would like

[Lunia.2736]

@tinymurder.5791 said:

@Teratus.2859 said:

@tinymurder.5791 said:

@Teratus.2859 said:

Nobody's presuming the names we want are sitting on long inactive accounts but it is a fact that there are a lot of dead Gw2 accounts which will never be used again and some of them may have claimed good names that someone else who does play the game regularly would get more use out of.

@Lunia.2736 has been presuming exactly that throughout this thread. In fact, given how consistent they've been with the specific details of their argument, I'm inclined to believe that they personally know somebody who:

1. Made a character at launch.
2. Leveled up once.
3. Stopped playing immediately afterward.And worst of all,
4. Locked up a name that @Lunia.2736 wanted for one of their characters.

I may be way off base, but it really does sound like sour grapes, instead of a reasoned argument.

I can't speak for Lunia only myself but I can understand their frustration if that is indeed their reason for their opinion on this subject.

Do you see how this weakens their argument, however? This is the linchpin of the entire argument that @Lunia.2736 has put forth, yet they are arguing from one to infinity. They have no proof that the names they want are locked up in the manner that they claim. They can't even prove that the people they claim have they names are inactive or even still have the names in question. No argument has been put forward that justifies the removal of names on inactive accounts that don't boil down to, "I want it more."

Everything

else is attempts to justify that argument.

Lastly, if @Lunia.2736 is putting forth their argument as a result of an interaction with someone they know personally holding a name "hostage," then their argument isn't just weak, it's irrelevant. Essentially they are saying, "someone I know has been a dirt bag to me. Please make extensive changes to your game, so that they don't win." I can sympathize with the sentiment, but I cannot support the position. Furthermore, it cuts that foundation argument right out, leaving all of the follow-on argument flapping in the wind.

Before I go, I'm sure lots of people will disagree with my statement that revoking character names is an extensive change. I would invite you to contemplate how much of this game uses your name. All of those functions would need to be tested to make sure that they still reference the correct name and assign a placeholder to the character that has had their name revoked. This would need to be automated system-wide, and be a priority update for newly returning accounts. None of this is impossible, but neither is it trivial. What would you rather have programmer time spent on? A feature that is requested by a clear minority(if this thread may be taken as being at all representative) or popularly requested QoL updates? Perhaps even new content?

All the names I'm interested in are on what are considered active accounts by the parameters I've given. I would not get any of the names I'm interested in.

[Tekoneiric.6817]

I created a Norn character a few days ago and had zero problems finding a name. Even a normal Norn sounding one at that. The only names I can see anyone having a problem with is ones that sound traditionally Sylvari or Asura.

If it ever really got to be an issue they could make it one name per race. Player X could have the name on lets say a Norn and other player could have the name on any other race.

[Illconceived Was Na.9781]

@Lunia.2736 wroteAll the names I'm interested in are on what are considered active accounts by the parameters I've given. I would not get any of the names I'm interested in.I don't mean to seem argumentative. I'm just having trouble understanding the passion for removing names from anyone's account.

Do you agree this would require considerable effort on ANet's part? (e.g. choose parameters, write script, test script, run script, deal with increased support queues, take a hit in public relations for changing their mind). By your own admission, the benefits are limited to a narrow subset of the community.

Even if ANet agreed that there was some shortage of names (and I'm sure you can see that might be a difficult sale to make), do you really think this is among the better solutions to that issue?

[Lunia.2736]

@Illconceived Was Na.9781 said:

@"Lunia.2736" wroteAll the names I'm interested in are on what are considered active accounts by the parameters I've given. I would not get any of the names I'm interested in.I don't mean to seem argumentative. I'm just having trouble understanding the passion for removing names from anyone's account.

I don't know if I'd call it passion. I'd call it confusion. I'm more confused as to why people are so defensive (going as far as risking their forum account by being toxic on a game they love) for someone who quit on day 1 over 7 years ago to keep their names on their level 1/2 placeholder characters that will never see the light of the day.

I believe people are overreacting (acting as if they'd lose their names themselves, even tho they're posting here so they wouldn't be flagged inactive to begin with) and underestimating the amount of dormant launch accounts every game has. There's a lot of people who buy a game, try it out, don't like the core of it and quit forever. What purpose is there to let them hold on to short/cool names simply because they were there early on if they are never gonna get any use. Yes, some might return to the game after 7-8 years, but that percentage is generally rather small. If you've ever done any database work on any MMO game servers you'll see a massive amount of accounts that have a creation date of 10th March and last activity 10th or 11th March.

Names, especially short and memorable ones, carry a value to most people, besides those who name themselves Xzhsdhagdsuj and are okay with that of course. However, those short and memorable names are a limited resource and most companies see the value in them. Hence why they'd rather satisfy an active player with a nice name and make them pay for a name change than letting it rot on a dormant account. Letting it stay there is untapped potential and revenue.

Do you agree this would require considerable effort on ANet's part? (e.g. choose parameters, write script, test script, run script, deal with increased support queues, take a hit in public relations for changing their mind). By your own admission, the benefits are limited to a narrow subset of the community.

The script itself could be made by any decent developer in no time, that wouldn't be an issue.

Increased support queues? I mean, that assumes that the people who quit the game on a day 1 to actually return and care about the name and/or character. From personal experience on database work on game servers this percentage is rather minuscule. Sure, Guild Wars 2 might be a rare exception somehow, but I kinda doubt it. Especially with all the problems this game had at launch and with the amount of Guild Wars 1 players who wanted it this game to be like Guild Wars 1, tried it out, saw it wasn't anything like it and never touched it again since. That might even cause the game to have even more dead and dormant accounts than fresh IPs would.

Personally if I quit a game right away and came back after over 7 years and lost my name "Bob" due to inactivity I'd only blame myself. But considering a lot of people's stance on this matter they'd rather blame the company and the person who took the name. Which I find odd, since I'm used to this system from almost every other MMORPG ever. Any game I might return to in the future I just log on once every year or two to keep my name. Not a big deal. Generally the inactive name wipes are also announced quite a bit beforehand and have a large buffer on what's considered inactive. Hell, sometimes that announcement brings me back to games I forgot about and I end up enjoying the patches and changes made to it. It could do the same for this game.

Even if ANet agreed that there was some shortage of names (and I'm sure you can see that might be a difficult sale to make), do you really think this is among the better solutions to that issue?

My argument is less about the shortage of names (since surnames and spaces easily solve that problem) and more about the accidental camping of valuable names on dormant accounts as explained above. I don't think this game is gonna run out of names for quite a while, at least if you use your space bar.

Anyway, thanks for being open for discussion. Since the people who just say "be more creative" and "they have something i want, give it to me!" are completely missing the point I'm trying to make about the limited resource of valuable names. I'm perfectly content with my current character names and any name I have interest in is on an active account.

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

The thing is...Guild Wars (1 and) 2 isn't like any other MMO out there. So, that's not a reason to do it.Also, ArenaNet doesn't need any more bad publicity (which ArenaNet would get, being accused of lying), or to enrage the playerbase, once again. I think one can see that the majority of posters would not take kindly to this practice. Yes, it's true that forum posters are a small sub-section of the playerbase, but they could be representative of the whole. Why take the chance?In addition, if one has been here since launch, one will be aware that 'simple scripts' have a habit of going wrong in the past; necessitating a rash of CS Team assistance.

[IndigoSundown.5419]

@"Lunia.2736" said:

I don't know if I'd call it passion. I'd call it confusion. I'm more confused as to why people are so defensive (going as far as risking their forum account by being toxic on a game they love) for someone who quit on day 1 over 7 years ago to keep their names on their level 1/2 placeholder characters that will never see the light of the day.

I believe people are overreacting (acting as if they'd lose their names themselves, even tho they're posting here so they wouldn't be flagged inactive to begin with) and underestimating the amount of dormant launch accounts every game has. There's a lot of people who buy a game, try it out, don't like the core of it and quit forever. What purpose is there to let them hold on to short/cool names simply because they were there early on if they are never gonna get any use.

Why do people react negatively to the suggestion? That I can take a stab at.

• How likely is it that many posters have had to be, as they put it, creative with names? People don't like it when they adapt to a situation and others choose not to adapt and instead complain and expect the developer to do what they want.
• People resist what they perceive to be entitlement whether the person making the request perceives s/he is being entitled, or not.
• People look at the potential RoI on implementing a suggestion and sometime decide the pay-off is not worth the cost. Given the many unknowns in this situation, it is easy to decide that an unknown cost will not be balanced by an unknown benefit. We've been told many times by ANet that what looks like a simple programming issue is anything but. There is no way to know how many players who might come back would be turned off to find they'd lost their names. There is also no way to know how much anger and disappointment would be voiced when some players don't get the name they want because they had to work when the name change system was implemented. After all, for each desirable name out there, only one player can benefit. Finally, there is no way to estimate how many desirable names would be freed up and thus to know how many one-player-benefits situations there would even be.
• All suggestions carry an opportunity cost. Any programming task that an ANet engineer tackles is time spent on that task and not on a different task that the poster would prefer over a task that they don't see the need for.
• Finally, an internet pastime is to make other people wrong. People seem to derive satisfaction by posting arguments that they think will "win" an internet discussion.

I hope that clarifies what could be going on.

Edit: I thought of another one. Any time a game developer goes back on a policy, there is a slippery slope aspect to the discussion. "They told us X and now they are going back on it." The slippery slope is, of course, "What policy will they change next?" For this reason, players value consistency from a developer over anything they think could affect them at some point.

[tinymurder.5791]

@MikeG.6389 said:

@"tinymurder.5791" said:I feel like the people who keep saying, "YOU DON'T TOUCH OTHER PLAYERS ACCOUNTS!!!" could stand to add a little nuance to their position.

That was me. In both instances of shouting, the rest were others quoting me. And it is as you said: I got frustrated of this notion being ignored in the responses. And if you search through the thread, I do believe that in other posts I managed to come across with a bit more nuance... Then again, I don't want to force anyone to do research on me, so:

• Anet has always encouraged players to play in their own pace through their business model. No subscription means you can play however long you want, leave for however long you want and come back whenever you want, without feeling behind. This was the case in GW1, this is one of the main draws of GW2, at least for me.
• I do believe that if they decided to do what OP suggested they would only lose players to please some of the existing ones. Definitely wouldn't gain new ones. Somewhere I mentioned account privacy, as well, and the seemingly effortless disregard thereof needed to do such a thing.
• Some claim to know that the names they want are on accounts that haven't logged in for years. I found this one a bit shaky. This information is very hard to obtain unless of course they know those people who haven't logged in because they are in the same guild or - with limited transparency - they are mutual friends. This immediately diminishes the 'hoards-of-inactive-accounts-with-good-names' argument to the much more likely 'I-know-a-guildie-who-was-last-on-in-2013-and-has-a-cool-name-on-one-of-their-toons'.
• There are some alternative ideas to have more freedom when naming your characters. Mine was to have more fields for names at creation and to be able to choose which fields are shown in game. Not the best idea, probably cannot even be implemented, but there it is. And it doesn't require Anet to effectively break into accounts thus breaking with their tradition.
• Bringing up other MMOs as examples in support of OP's post is not a valid argument, I think. Especially if the examples have different business models from Anet's. Sub based and free-to-play MMOs rely on continuous revenue from subscriptions and micro transactions to keep their ships afloat. So they use every incentive to get more people to log in. Anet doesn't need to do that, at least not in such a desperate way.

Sorry for the long rambling, but I felt like being called out on my admittedly obnoxious shouting.

My apologies, I wasn't trying to make you feel called out. I did actually read all of your posts and generally agree with what you are saying. I figured you were mainly upset with certain individuals continually ignoring your arguments and simply restating their position.

[tinymurder.5791]

@"Lunia.2736" said:

All the names I'm interested in are on what are considered active accounts by the parameters I've given. I would not get any of the names I'm interested in.

...then why do you care? Seriously, I don't get it. You've been all over this thread. You keep repeating your arguments, even when they have been shown to be either false or exaggerated. You call people toxic, apparently for disagreeing with you. Then you claim that any change won't free up the names you're interested in, and that you feel no particular passion for this subject. Yet you still claim that there is a great shortage of available names due to characters made on launch not being played for 7 years. Oh, and they're only up to level two. You keep harping on this specific, unprovable, scenario and then disingenuously call it "accidental camping."

It's clear that you do have an issue with people reserving names and then not using them. It seems very clear to me that you have a specific player in mind every time you bring it up. Quite frankly, this turns me off of your entire position, as it makes me feel like you're trolling the thread. I sincerely hope this is not the case and apologize if I'm wrong. Either way, this thread is unproductive and I am going to retire from it.

[robertthebard.8150]

@Lunia.2736 said:

@Illconceived Was Na.9781 said:

@Lunia.2736 wroteAll the names I'm interested in are on what are considered active accounts by the parameters I've given. I would not get any of the names I'm interested in.I don't mean to seem argumentative. I'm just having trouble understanding the passion for removing names from anyone's account.

I don't know if I'd call it passion. I'd call it confusion. I'm more confused as to why people are so defensive (going as far as risking their forum account by being toxic on a game they love) for someone who quit on day 1 over 7 years ago to keep their names on their level 1/2 placeholder characters that will never see the light of the day.

I believe people are overreacting (acting as if they'd lose their names themselves, even tho they're posting here so they wouldn't be flagged inactive to begin with) and underestimating the amount of dormant launch accounts every game has. There's a lot of people who buy a game, try it out, don't like the core of it and quit forever. What purpose is there to let them hold on to short/cool names simply because they were there early on if they are never gonna get any use. Yes, some might return to the game after 7-8 years, but that percentage is generally rather small. If you've ever done any database work on any MMO game servers you'll see a massive amount of accounts that have a creation date of 10th March and last activity 10th or 11th March.

Names, especially short and memorable ones, carry a value to most people, besides those who name themselves Xzhsdhagdsuj and are okay with that of course. However, those short and memorable names are a limited resource and most companies see the value in them. Hence why they'd rather satisfy an active player with a nice name and make them pay for a name change than letting it rot on a dormant account. Letting it stay there is untapped potential and revenue.

Do you agree this would require considerable effort on ANet's part? (e.g. choose parameters, write script, test script, run script, deal with increased support queues, take a hit in public relations for changing their mind). By your own admission, the benefits are limited to a narrow subset of the community.

The script itself could be made by any decent developer in no time, that wouldn't be an issue.

Increased support queues? I mean, that assumes that the people who quit the game on a day 1 to actually return and care about the name and/or character. From personal experience on database work on game servers this percentage is rather minuscule. Sure, Guild Wars 2 might be a rare exception somehow, but I kinda doubt it. Especially with all the problems this game had at launch and with the amount of Guild Wars 1 players who wanted it this game to be like Guild Wars 1, tried it out, saw it wasn't anything like it and never touched it again since. That might even cause the game to have even more dead and dormant accounts than fresh IPs would.

Personally if I quit a game right away and came back after over 7 years and lost my name "Bob" due to inactivity I'd only blame myself. But considering a lot of people's stance on this matter they'd rather blame the company and the person who took the name. Which I find odd, since I'm used to this system from almost every other MMORPG ever. Any game I might return to in the future I just log on once every year or two to keep my name. Not a big deal. Generally the inactive name wipes are also announced quite a bit beforehand and have a large buffer on what's considered inactive. Hell, sometimes that announcement brings me back to games I forgot about and I end up enjoying the patches and changes made to it. It could do the same for this game.

Even if ANet agreed that there was some shortage of names (and I'm sure you can see that might be a difficult sale to make), do you really think this is among the better solutions to that issue?

My argument is less about the shortage of names (since surnames and spaces easily solve that problem) and more about the accidental camping of valuable names on dormant accounts as explained above. I don't think this game is gonna run out of names for quite a while, at least if you use your space bar.

Anyway, thanks for being open for discussion. Since the people who just say "be more creative" and "they have something i want, give it to me!" are completely missing the point I'm trying to make about the limited resource of valuable names. I'm perfectly content with my current character names and any name I have interest in is on an active account.

That's a lot of assumption, isn't it? I have to say, the only time I see people worrying this much about a limited supply of a valuable resource is when they're looking to sell said resource. Then there's the whole "valuable resource" thing anyway. Names are just as valuable to the people that have them as they are to the people that want them. I had a guildmate get deployed, and he was out for two years. If they were doing name purges on that game, he'd have lost his names, just because his career kept him away from the game. So someone with your position on it would be happy, but my mate? Not so much.

Then there's this "toxicity" thing. For myself, I find it rather toxic to rationalize or attempt to justify taking from player a to give to player b. I realize that that's a strange position to take according to some people, who feel as if they deserve something simply because they want it, but that's where I stand on it. If player b lacks the imagination, or desire, to come up with another name, maybe they should rethink that character, instead of coming to the forums claiming "they're parking this name on a level 2 character that hasn't been played since launch". Even if this is true, there's plenty of ways around it, as you point out, and as has been pointed out by others in this thread, and in the "over 9000" of these threads that I've seen over the years. I would hope that, in a Buy to Play scenario such as this, your initial investment would at least guarantee that your account is safe from the people that can't exist without that one "valuable" name.

Games that I try, and don't plan to return to, I tend to delete the character I rolled up to try it on, but since I have my own "stash" of unique names, I doubt that it's taking anything away from anyone else anyway, but if I'm not coming back, and I know I'm not, I remove my character from their servers before I remove their game from my PC, or xbox, whichever is relevant. I'm sure that not everyone does this, but it's something that I tend to do. It's a carry over from server vaults on the original Neverwinter Nights, where it was considerate to the owner of the server, since they were hosted on personal computers, for the most part.

But the terminology used "camping on valuable names" gives me every reason to believe that the person stating such feels as if they're entitled to those names. The word "valuable" doesn't even enter into the equation when I think about it. They're my names, but since I'm actively using them, or at least logging in every so often, they're also safe from those that may decide "that name's too cool for him to keep, so I'm going to friend him, and monitor how often he doesn't log in, so I can try to get it". The other side to this is the "I thought it was on an inactive account, but it's just an inactive character on an active account" scenario, which then has them raging even more about how they can't get ahold of someone else's "valuable property".

[Danikat.8537]

@"Killerassel.2197" said:I had an idea. I mostly dislike the title + name idea for my asuras, because they would constantly be addressed with that title as if it actually were their name. Since I'm uncreative right now, let's take an NPC as example: Archivist Grep.

While players would get it and use only the actual name - unless you are named Xx Grep Xx, then I will call you exactly that until you admit that it sounds rediculous as a name. But I'd be terribly annoyed if NPCs would call me Commander Archivist Grep. Or Lightbringer Agent Wattever.

My suggestion: allow nicknames, to override how NPCs address you. Unlike the split between first and last name already suggested earlier in this thread, I'd even suggest to make it freely chosable. May or may not be displayed to players. But if so, it shouldn't make the actual name invisible for the reasons already stated by others in this thread. And since it isn't the actual name as considered for game mechanics (party invite, mail, ...) it wouldn't need to be unique.

For me it would open up "surnames" to asuras and salads.

Probably many players would still be unhappy to be seen by others with such a title or lore-wise unfitting surname.

Regarding 19 letters: I've had to rename a charr because of this limit. I had thought out the character's backstory and what a fitting name would be but didn't consider the length. During character creation I had to improvise. Luckily charr names are still available. Especially when using non-english warband names.

I'd really like that option. Especially if the nickname was entirely separate and therefore could be something different to the characters name.

For example my main character is called Danielle Aurorel, and she's really not a formal person so if she had her way by the start of Season 2 at the latest the members of Dragon's Watch (which I know wasn't called that at the time) would be calling her Dani. It's weird for me when mail etc. uses her full name.

It wouldn't fix all the name problems, but it would make a lot of written dialogue look more natural.

@MikeG.6389 said:

@"tinymurder.5791" said:Honestly, I feel the person who started this thread was trolling, since they literally haven't posted in here since making the original post.

Let's all take a moment to contemplate this.I'm retiring from this thread.

I'm not so sure about that. Looking at the OPs posting history they tend to come to the forum to make a specific request or suggestion then don't post again for months. It's equally likely they made this suggestion and then largely forgot about it. Or they made what they thought was a simple suggestion, came back a day or two later to multiple pages of "arguing" back and forth and decided it was way too much to even read, let alone try and follow up on.

Even though I enjoy that kind of debate I sometimes miss seeing a thread when it first starts and then it's 4 or 5 pages in and I decide it's not worth the time it would take to catch up to see if I can add anything at that point.

@Lunia.2736 said:

@Illconceived Was Na.9781 said:

@Lunia.2736 wroteAll the names I'm interested in are on what are considered active accounts by the parameters I've given. I would not get any of the names I'm interested in.I don't mean to seem argumentative. I'm just having trouble understanding the passion for removing names from anyone's account.

I don't know if I'd call it passion. I'd call it confusion. I'm more confused as to why people are so defensive (going as far as risking their forum account by being toxic on a game they love) for someone who quit on day 1 over 7 years ago to keep their names on their level 1/2 placeholder characters that will never see the light of the day.

No one in this topic has come remotely close to saying anything that would even justify a warning, let alone a ban. I realise some people find any disagreement distressing, but nothing in this topic has been "toxic". Passionate, yes, but that's not a bad thing, especially during a debate.

[Lunia.2736]

@tinymurder.5791 said:

@Lunia.2736 said:

All the names I'm interested in are on what are considered active accounts by the parameters I've given. I would not get any of the names I'm interested in.

...then why do you care? Seriously, I don't get it. You've been all over this thread. You keep repeating your arguments, even when they have been shown to be either false or exaggerated. You call people toxic, apparently for disagreeing with you. Then you claim that any change won't free up the names you're interested in, and that you feel no particular passion for this subject. Yet you still claim that there is a great shortage of available names due to characters made on launch not being played for 7 years. Oh, and they're only up to level two. You keep harping on this specific,

unprovable

, scenario and then disingenuously call it

"accidental camping."

Not unprovable at all, invite character names to your guild and it'll show their last online date to you.

It's clear that you do have an issue with people reserving names and then not using them. It seems very clear to me that you have a specific player in mind every time you bring it up. Quite frankly, this turns me off of your entire position, as it makes me feel like you're trolling the thread. I sincerely hope this is not the case and apologize if I'm wrong. Either way, this thread is unproductive and I am going to retire from it.

As I said above, I don't have a specific player in mind because that specific player is still active. Which I checked with the above method by inviting them to my guild. I'm not trying to troll anything. I merely support a common practice in MMORPGs.

Also I'm obviously not calling them toxic merely for disagreeing with me. People just really like to misinterpret what I'm saying so they can debate a straw man for no particular reason. So maybe it's best to retire from this thread, yeah.

@robertthebard.8150 said:

@Lunia.2736 said:

@Illconceived Was Na.9781 said:

@Lunia.2736 wroteAll the names I'm interested in are on what are considered active accounts by the parameters I've given. I would not get any of the names I'm interested in.I don't mean to seem argumentative. I'm just having trouble understanding the passion for removing names from anyone's account.

I don't know if I'd call it passion. I'd call it confusion. I'm more confused as to why people are so defensive (going as far as risking their forum account by being toxic on a game they love) for someone who quit on day 1 over 7 years ago to keep their names on their level 1/2 placeholder characters that will never see the light of the day.

I believe people are overreacting (acting as if they'd lose their names themselves, even tho they're posting here so they wouldn't be flagged inactive to begin with) and underestimating the amount of dormant launch accounts every game has. There's a lot of people who buy a game, try it out, don't like the core of it and quit forever. What purpose is there to let them hold on to short/cool names simply because they were there early on if they are never gonna get any use. Yes, some might return to the game after 7-8 years, but that percentage is generally rather small. If you've ever done any database work on any MMO game servers you'll see a massive amount of accounts that have a creation date of 10th March and last activity 10th or 11th March.

Names, especially short and memorable ones, carry a value to most people, besides those who name themselves Xzhsdhagdsuj and are okay with that of course. However, those short and memorable names are a limited resource and most companies see the value in them. Hence why they'd rather satisfy an active player with a nice name and make them pay for a name change than letting it rot on a dormant account. Letting it stay there is untapped potential and revenue.

Do you agree this would require considerable effort on ANet's part? (e.g. choose parameters, write script, test script, run script, deal with increased support queues, take a hit in public relations for changing their mind). By your own admission, the benefits are limited to a narrow subset of the community.

The script itself could be made by any decent developer in no time, that wouldn't be an issue.

Increased support queues? I mean, that assumes that the people who quit the game on a day 1 to actually return and care about the name and/or character. From personal experience on database work on game servers this percentage is rather minuscule. Sure, Guild Wars 2 might be a rare exception somehow, but I kinda doubt it. Especially with all the problems this game had at launch and with the amount of Guild Wars 1 players who wanted it this game to be like Guild Wars 1, tried it out, saw it wasn't anything like it and never touched it again since. That might even cause the game to have even more dead and dormant accounts than fresh IPs would.

Personally if I quit a game right away and came back after over 7 years and lost my name "Bob" due to inactivity I'd only blame myself. But considering a lot of people's stance on this matter they'd rather blame the company and the person who took the name. Which I find odd, since I'm used to this system from almost every other MMORPG ever. Any game I might return to in the future I just log on once every year or two to keep my name. Not a big deal. Generally the inactive name wipes are also announced quite a bit beforehand and have a large buffer on what's considered inactive. Hell, sometimes that announcement brings me back to games I forgot about and I end up enjoying the patches and changes made to it. It could do the same for this game.

Even if ANet agreed that there was some shortage of names (and I'm sure you can see that might be a difficult sale to make), do you really think this is among the better solutions to that issue?

My argument is less about the shortage of names (since surnames and spaces easily solve that problem) and more about the accidental camping of valuable names on dormant accounts as explained above. I don't think this game is gonna run out of names for quite a while, at least if you use your space bar.

Anyway, thanks for being open for discussion. Since the people who just say "be more creative" and "they have something i want, give it to me!" are completely missing the point I'm trying to make about the limited resource of valuable names. I'm perfectly content with my current character names and any name I have interest in is on an active account.

That's a lot of assumption, isn't it? I have to say, the only time I see people worrying this much about a limited supply of a valuable resource is when they're looking to sell said resource. Then there's the whole "valuable resource" thing anyway. Names are just as valuable to the people that have them as they are to the people that want them. I had a guildmate get deployed, and he was out for two years. If they were doing name purges on that game, he'd have lost his names, just because his career kept him away from the game. So someone with your position on it would be happy, but my mate? Not so much.

He likely has characters above a very low level threshold, certain playtime and account activity in the last 7 years since launch. Maybe in other games that purge every year or two, but that's unrelated to my implementation of a purge.

Then there's this "toxicity" thing. For myself, I find it rather toxic to rationalize or attempt to justify taking from player a to give to player b. I realize that that's a strange position to take according to some people, who feel as if they deserve something simply because they want it, but that's where I stand on it. If player b lacks the imagination, or desire, to come up with another name, maybe they should rethink that character, instead of coming to the forums claiming "they're parking this name on a level 2 character that hasn't been played since launch". Even if this is true, there's plenty of ways around it, as you point out, and as has been pointed out by others in this thread, and in the "over 9000" of these threads that I've seen over the years. I would hope that, in a Buy to Play scenario such as this, your initial investment would at least guarantee that your account is safe from the people that can't exist without that one "valuable" name.

I've already mentioned several times that coming up with names is not the problem and completely unrelated to what I'm saying.

But the terminology used "camping on valuable names" gives me every reason to believe that the person stating such feels as if they're entitled to those names. The word "valuable" doesn't even enter into the equation when I think about it. They're my names, but since I'm actively using them, or at least logging in every so often, they're also safe from those that may decide "that name's too cool for him to keep, so I'm going to friend him, and monitor how often he doesn't log in, so I can try to get it". The other side to this is the "I thought it was on an inactive account, but it's just an inactive character on an active account" scenario, which then has them raging even more about how they can't get ahold of someone else's "valuable property".

When you invite them to your guild or friends you add their account, not a particular character.

[Teratus.2859]

@Bloodstealer.5978 said:

@Teratus.2859 said:

@Bloodstealer.5978 said:

@Teratus.2859 said:

@Bloodstealer.5978 said:

@Teratus.2859 said:

@Danikat.8537 said:

@Teratus.2859 said:

@Genesis.8572 said:

@Teratus.2859 said:Creativity only goes so far.. and some people like myself for example are significantly invested into giving our character natural sounding lore fitting names and honestly despise having to throw a name out entirely because it's taken or change a few letters around or spell them akwardly to the point they look and sound stupid.Which other people are capable of easily achieving even now, as I and others have experienced as well.

Not everyone has the same rules with thier names like I said.You may be fine with adding a double letter or changing something but others place more value in their names and are not willing to butcher them like that.

What do you do if there's another barrier to the name you want, other than someone else getting it first?

For example I really wanted to call my weaver Rinkhal Stormbringer, a name which ties heavily into the backstory I created for him and his personality. It's

perfect

for him. But I couldn't use it. Why? It's 20 characters long.

I suppose I could have begged Anet to change the rules, to let us use 20 characters, after all it's just 1 more letter so it shouldn't cause any problems right? (Cue someone explaining how 19 characters fits perfectly into X bits of data or some such thing.) But regardless of whether it's possible it would have left me waiting indefinitely for a change which may or may not happen before I could make my new character.

As Mew said.. extended the character limit is far more reasonable than stripping away dead names from dead accounts.. and probably easier too.I'd have no problem with increasing the cap to 25-30 characters in all honesty.

So, regardless of how attached I was to that name I went back to the drawing board (or more precisely a series of post-it notes) and went looking for another name. I stumbled across the Afrikaans word Akkedis (which means lizard) and...I don't know why but it stuck. I decided even if I didn't use it in his name that would be his real first name for RP purposes. But eventually I decided on Akkedis de Rinkhal, a name which I like at least as much as my original idea.

It's the same process when a name I want is taken. I understand being attached to a name (that's why some of us are so against this idea) but the only time I've gotten so attached to one that I wouldn't find something else instead is when I've had it for years. I've got 2 characters (not counting Akkedis) where the name I first wanted was taken (one going back to GW1) so I changed it slightly, and now I wouldn't change either of them even if I could, and I'd be extremely upset if someone else took them away from me. (Which is possible, under this proposed system since one is a lore appropriate asuran name and the other is a reference to a popular character with just 1 letter changed to make an equally meaningful name which regularly gets mistaken for the original.)

As I said i'm not arguing for taking names but for changing things so players can use dupicates of the same name.But in regards to taking names from dead accounts a lot of what i'm seeing as against that decision seems to stem from the assumption that names are going to be taken away from regular players who go on short breaks.. even though the OP stated that the duration required to loose a name would be years of never logging in.I honestly doubt many people who have not logged into the game in 2 years even think about coming back.. and if they did I doubt they would care about their old characters or their names all that much.Many who do come back tend to just start new characters anyway as they don't remember how to play their old ones nor are they familiar with any of the changes.

You would be surprised how many players take extended breaks in games then come back.. sometimes those break are unplanned but necessary, it's not just about players not liking GW2 enough to play it anymore.Whilst extending the number of character is as others say, a reasonable request, it would still not satisfy the "you got what I want, it's not fair, give it to me" attitude.Bottom line there is simply NO justification for trying to take other players character names other than " I want BoB and only BoB, GIVE ME BoB cos it's not fair someone else's character is called BoB!!"

I take them myself from time to time.

See you're arguing from a place that suggests people are angry about names used by regular players and that they feel entitled to those names when it's not like that.It's specifically been said by the person who started this thread that what we need is a some kind of new system to handle names better and that this is a discussion worth having.Which is something I definitely agree with.

Taking old unused names from inactive accounts is only one of the options people have suggested and that seems to be the only one people are even talking about here.And some like yourself are even stripping that down to "give me your character name" which is a really unfair way to look at it not to mention it doesn't add anything constructive or positive to the discussion.Not everyone is arguing for what you say they are.. I've already put forward my alternative solution to the problem, yet I keep getting replies like yours when i've made it clear i'm not for that solution myself either.

No, sorry, but your the one doing arguing .. extended long term breaks are not just about needing a break there are many other reasons it happens.The person who started this thread wanted a specific name that he/she is frustrated about not being able to have then it progressed into some fantasy friends list notion that said name has not been around for a few years.. or has that person being monitoring that name since launch.. no of course not and cannot.Every account whether they are absent in game for any length of time or not are still accounts that have the potential to generate revenue for ANET, heck the welcome back event is right there in our faces.On the flip side even if character names were to become relisted what happens when the one you still want isn't.. gunna ask for more ways and reasons to steal them of others.. nah - the system is fine, get creative or put up I say.Some players' self perceived entitlement has no bounds sometimes I think.

Yes i'm arguing for something i've said multiple times I don't support.. because that makes perfect sense.

Are you even reading my comments or just on here looking to argue with people and slander them as entitled?Because i'm starting to think you're ignoring just about everything i'm saying to do exactly that.

To you it makes sense and so you argue with anyone that does not conform to your belief.. I and others in this thread have repeatedly attempted to counter the reasons for taking names from other players. That is not arguing or name calling it is simply countering the "it's not fair someone else has something I want, so I want it cos I can't be bothered to try and think outside the box a little".I and others have made very clear arguments for not wanting ANET to take this path, which I believe has the potential to cause more harm than good imo. You on the other hand are perhaps the one being ignorant to the facts and counters that have been presented, and instead seek to argue no matter what.

Well now I know everything I needed to know..

Lets just agree to stop wasting each others time with pointless arguing, Im not interesting in fighting with you or anyone else on here.

[kharmin.7683]

@Lunia.2736 said:I merely support a common practice in MMORPGs.Is it really? Is it a common practice across the entire genre of MMORPGs? Not trying to be trollish -- I just don't know and am curious as to how you came to this conclusion.

[Teratus.2859]

@tinymurder.5791 said:

@"Teratus.2859" said:

It's specifically been said by the person who started this thread that what we need is a some kind of new system to handle names better and that this is a discussion worth having.Which is something I definitely agree with.

Honestly, I feel the person who started this thread was trolling, since they literally haven't posted in here since making the original post.

I don't think they were trolling, there's fair reason to want a better system for names and both good and bad ways to go about it.I can understand why they've not posted again though considering what i've had to deal with.

Taking old unused names from inactive accounts is only one of the options people have suggested and that seems to be the only one people are even talking about here.And some like yourself are even stripping that down to "give me your character name" which is a really unfair way to look at it not to mention it doesn't add anything constructive or positive to the discussion.Not everyone is arguing for what you say they are.. I've already put forward my alternative solution to the problem, yet I keep getting replies like yours when i've made it clear i'm not for that solution myself either.

I feel like the people who keep saying, "YOU DON'T TOUCH OTHER PLAYERS ACCOUNTS!!!" could stand to add a little nuance to their position. While it does make it seem as if they are saying that you(specifically) want to take their(personal) character names away, I really don't think this is the intended meaning. I understand where they're coming from. They don't like the idea being put forth, i.e. that Anet should revoke character names from inactive accounts. After all, what's an inactive account? Where is the definition in the TOS? Will the names that are freed, actually be the names people are looking for? What if the reason you can't have that name is because it belongs to a gold scammer who was banned four years ago? Perhaps it's a bad word in Czechoslovakian?

As far as not adding anything to the discussion, this hasn't been a discussion on either side. Both sides have simply restated their positions, while deconstructing their opponent's arguments. I believe this is because this is merely the latest in a series of threads over the years about this subject. Honestly, this argument was played out years ago and no one has anything constructive to add. Those in favor trot out the same arguments, and those opposed trot out the same counterarguments. Eventually some one gets tired of not having their point ignored(no offense, usually by the name-revokers) and they keep posting in all-caps, bold font,

"DON'T TOUCH OTHER PLAYER'S ACCOUNTS!"

At this point, someone may as well invoke Godwin's Law and call it a night.

Pretty much where I'm at now, nobody even mentioned my solution, discussed it or argued a sigle point against it.This whole thread has disolved into pointlessness and few here seem to want to discuss the problem at all and keep posting the same things which pretty much boil down to what you said.. don't touch peoples names etc.