Irrelevant Hot Take

[vicky.9751]

............

 

Edited December 9, 2021 by vicky.9751

[Cyprien.4208]

I understand that it's not always simple to find a name that will work however you should never punish a person for not playing. You just simply need to tie things to account names which are already unique due the number system which is added after account name.  It's odd choice why it wasn't in the first place as many people in the world have the same name as someone else there are really few unique names in the world. 

[ASP.8093]

If you're a roleplayer, you really should learn how to assign surnames or bynames to your characters.

 

If you're not a roleplayer, you really have no excuse.

[Faridah.8431]

54 minutes ago, vicky.9751 said:

A prompt upon logging in after 1--2 years of a break telling you to rename your character due to inactivity might be fine. I don't see the point in deleting anyone's progress though.

 

This sounds positively awful.

[Game of Bones.8975]

If anything like this is enacted:

• Players who have characters in the system should be Grandfathered with no time limits. 
• Only characters made after the cut-off date would be subject to the Name Delete feature after "XXX Time" of account inactivity
• Emails, Log-in pop-ups, or any other way to notify a player the character named "ABCDE" will be not be playable until a new character name is chosen. 

 

But on the whole, I'm still against the idea.

Edited August 21, 2021 by Game of Bones.8975
updated

[ASP.8093]

3 hours ago, Game of Bones.8975 said:

Only characters made after the cut-off date would be subject to the Name Delete feature after "XXX Time" of account inactivity

The only people asking for this mostly just want to yoink names someone else already registered 8+ years ago.

[Game of Bones.8975]

9 hours ago, ASP.8093 said:

The only people asking for this mostly just want to yoink names someone else already registered 8+ years ago.

 I understand completely, which is why I think there should be the caveat of grandfathering names for active accounts. Even if an individual character hasn't been touched. I have a Ranger I haven't played since GW2 came out. She has the name of a GW1 character that I don't want to give up. 

 

Any changes would have to come with new Accounts so people understand they need to play the game every couple years to keep their character names. 

 

I'm sure there are people who haven't played since before HoT and won't play again. Their accounts have been inactive for YEARS. Fire off an email to give them the opportunity to refresh their account within a couple months or their character names will become available again. 

[Kurrilino.2706]

"We've Asked For Name Decay For Years"

 

No we have not !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Stop making a single person speak like the majority.

Nobody will touch my or anyone else name...... period.

 

The creativity you showed here to create a threat like that could better be use to come up with a character name

[vicky.9751]

,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

Edited December 9, 2021 by vicky.9751

[Substance E.4852]

This is a game where you get a sizeable character limit and multiple spaces for your toon names

If you're really running into issues where you can't name a toon without resorting to exotic characters then you're simply not being creative enough, if at all

In fact, pretty much the only time I see people resort to special characters is when people want pop fiction names or low effort stuff like "Moon Queen Luna"

It's also HIGHLY presumptuous to assume that a taken name is rotting on some abandoned account and not still in use

Sorry that you can't name your pistol Thief "John Wick" or whatever but that's what happens when you join a game that came out 8 years ago

[JustTrogdor.7892]

The only names that should ever be released would be from Free to Play accounts that have not logged in say 1 year or more.  Those accounts obviously are not invested in the game.  So if the Free to Play account has not logged in over a 1 year period the names could be given up.  But even then if Anet did that they should send an email stating the policy change to give them a chance to login.  

 

I'm fine with the current naming rules.   I've never had a problem creating names myself.

Edited August 22, 2021 by JustTrogdor.7892

[Algreg.3629]

I have not played this game in a year and I could not care less what happens to my character names, but once such a system is implemented, I will reinstall and relog just to spite OP 😆

[Follyfoot.2803]

I don't get this at all.  I have been deleting and making new characters since the war, and do you know how long it takes me to make a new and interesting name for myself?  Around 2 seconds.  So of what use would it be to upset people just because they took a break?    If you really want the name 'Mary Poppins' then just change it a little but I'm sure you can think of another.

Edited August 22, 2021 by Follyfoot.2803

[Follyfoot.2803]

On 8/21/2021 at 12:39 AM, ASP.8093 said:

If you're a roleplayer, you really should learn how to assign surnames or bynames to your characters.

 

If you're not a roleplayer, you really have no excuse.

Right on.  FF14 encourages this and even though it has 16 quintillion players I have never had a name refused.

[mike.6957]

I am often interested in the name that the people that start these posts wanted....  They never mention the name.  Also, who is to say you would get the name if it freed up.  It frees up and someone else can grab it before you make a new character.

 

I am terrible at names and go to a web site that generates names for all 5 races.  Plus other fantasy names.  Maybe they should check the site out

 

https://www.fantasynamegenerators.com/

Edited August 22, 2021 by mike.6957

[kharmin.7683]

2 hours ago, mike.6957 said:

I am often interested in the name that the people that start these posts wanted....  They never mention the name. 

It's Legolas.  It's always Legolas.

[SexyMofo.8923]

I apologize for taking your name. 

[XenoSpyro.1780]

On 8/13/2021 at 7:40 AM, Teratus.2859 said:

There's no good reason imo why people can't have characters with the same name... It only encourages joke names, silly names and gibberish names that in all honesty are quite annoying to see.

How to break apart character/class identity with this one easy trick. No seriously, all this does is punish anyone that actually puts effort towards a character. While seeing Rytlock clones and meme names a hundred times IS annoying, I'd rather have that if I meant I could keep my original names.
For the same reason, I can't take anyone seriously if they suggest "turn skins off" because someone doesn't like Quip or infusions, because it stops me from seeing actual well put together armor sets.

[Gwaihir.1745]

How do you have this much trouble finding a name? I'm constantly surprised at the names I find open. Like Gary Watergate is still open? Sir Wranrap wasn't even taken. 

Maybe its a lack of ingenuity that is limiting the pool of names you have to choose from.

[borgs.6103]

Nah..

The names you can make from Aaa to Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz are pretty infinite.

[Teratus.2859]

4 hours ago, XenoSpyro.1780 said:

How to break apart character/class identity with this one easy trick. No seriously, all this does is punish anyone that actually puts effort towards a character. While seeing Rytlock clones and meme names a hundred times IS annoying, I'd rather have that if I meant I could keep my original names.
For the same reason, I can't take anyone seriously if they suggest "turn skins off" because someone doesn't like Quip or infusions, because it stops me from seeing actual well put together armor sets.

You'd still keep those names, they would still be your names and you would still be the first person to have those names.
You just wouldn't be denying others the possibility of also having those names and forcing them to spend potentially a good deal of time and effort coming up with another name every time they make another character, that's all.

The comparison with skins isn't quite fair though, cosmetics put far more strain on performance than names do, often requiring a significant amount of name tags visible to affect performance.
And both have options to hide/disable them to counter said performance issues which is mostly beneficial to those with lower end computers.
There is even an option to hide certain sound effects as well if you don't want to be irritated by or have your immersion spoiled by various novelty items, and also a certain legendary short bow which tends to be loved by some and utterly despised by most xD

You also have to factor in populations as well.
Gw2 has an estimated 14,955,167 accounts (according to MMO population) and an estimated active playerbase of only 710,370.
That at least puts 14,244,797 unique names locked away on inactive accounts..
This imo completely shatters the entire argument about how "The name you want probably isn't on an inactive account anyway".. by those very numbers though the chances are much higher that they are on inactive accounts rather than active ones.. specially since region locking/transfers are a thing as well, despite not being able to play with my friends in NA, they still can't use any names taken by EU players and vice versa.
So even if there was a change to allow for people to use any names they like, the chances of naturally coming across another player with your name is arguably still very very small.

If anything the most likely occurrence of that happening would be intentional poor attempts at trolling as someone mentioned before which would not be that effective since reporting the "imposter player" would not impact the original player being trolled because their account/display name's would be totally different.. as would the characters age and behaviour which is something Anet can track via logs.

The other likely occurrence of seeing characters with the same name would be via intentional organised player actions which if you've been part of world boss rushes etc you would already not consider a problem since there are a number of people in game right now who play Gw2 with multi accounts having several identical and ridiculous looking characters with the same name albeit with slight variations logged in at the same time so they can multiply the amount of daily loot they get from each boss.

The only major issue I see with this name problem is if names are taken from others for inactivity which has long been the common argument which as I stated I am not in support of.

[Dante.1763]

8 hours ago, kharmin.7683 said:

It's Legolas.  It's always Legolas.

I think you mean xXLeGoLasXx

 

Or xxShadowReaperxx

 

Though, yea, 95% of the time they want some movie/show/book name, aaaaand that gets no sympathy from me.

 

How "One Winged Angel" wasnt taken i have no clue..

[Danikat.8537]

Todays available name: Arylli.

 

Admittedly I tried Aryll first and that was taken, which is entirely unsurprising since it's taken from Wind Waker (and she's quite a popular character). But it only took adding 1 letter to get it.

 

(On a related note I really need to stop using names that begin with A for tempoary characters. It doesn't make it harder to get an available name but I do it far too often and it's pretty repetitive.)

[Faridah.8431]

7 hours ago, Teratus.2859 said:

You also have to factor in populations as well.
Gw2 has an estimated 14,955,167 accounts (according to MMO population) and an estimated active playerbase of only 710,370.
That at least puts 14,244,797 unique names locked away on inactive accounts..

Source for the bolded please.

 

So? Inactive is different from dead, and you don't have a way of quantifying one from the other. I took a 2 year break once, is that a dead account? I'm sorry someone couldn't get the name "Gandalf the Grey". There are infinitely more names to come up with, and a lot of effort is not needed with fantasy name generators existing and the like. 

 

Again, I really fail to see an actual problem here aside from "QQ someone got the name I want". 

[Excursion.9752]

On 8/19/2021 at 6:20 PM, Moira Shalaar.5620 said:

You seem to have neglected or overlooked the fact that there have already been numerous legitimate reasons posted in this thread for why a player might have a break in playing that is far longer than 3 months. Let me restate a few: extended illness, military deployment, experiencing homelessness; to which I will also add: having a baby & adverse work schedule.

I did not neglect or overlook any of these. I have and know people who meet all this criteria minus the homelessness. The fact of the matter is if real life is kicking your butt or if you have made choices in your life that takes you away from contact with society for greater than three months well maybe that is more important than a video game...

 

Everyone acts as if people are lining up to steal names. They are not. But I guess having thousands of dead accounts lock names is a good thing. Everyone is tilted because they can't possibly imagine someone else using their name and the only reason that is, is because anet decided to make it that way. If they had decided to go the other direction people would not care at all about this topic. People hate change is what it boils down to.

 

I have never had trouble creating a name in this game so my post here are purely out of principle. I have played games that you lose way more than a name if you didn't log in so this to me seems pretty miniscule.