Names

[ASSASSIN47]

Just joined the server, with wife and kids. What a aweful time we had trying to name our toons something proper and fun. Took us days of searching other games and forums and google to come up with somewhat acceptable names. And yes you shoud enjoy your name, as it is your avatar and essentially a extension of you.

How about you take away peples names who have been gone on their account for more than a year to free up names. If it has been more than that the chances are so low of them coming back, and even so they should forfeit them and have to recreate the name. But ONLY the name. Have staff rename them of just leave them blank in some capacity or another. If they do return they should get that toon back! Swtor did something similar to this when they condensed servers and 3 people had the same name, the second 2 to log on had to rename their toons.

I believe this would be fair to the people who want to play and stay and be a part of the community. if you leave the community well you will pay the price. I think a year is more than enough time for people to walk away and take a break and want to come back at some point. also if someone has issues of a medical or other capacity, the year limit would be more than enough time.

If names are released at some point staff should also send out info in a post that names have become available to the community for those who are looking for that perfect name for our toons so that we can grab them as active players. they don't have to list the names, just say hey we released x amount of names back to the community, then we have to see if something we want is avail just like normal. however it gets done though, it will certainly boost some moral knowing the active community is important enough to give some love to those of us who took a name that we really didn't want.

And maybe do this every 3 -6 months with the release of names. so if 30 accounts go over the year mark every 3 months @ 10 toons per account, that's 300 names back to the community. give or take however many toons they made. I'm willing to bet a good 2000 names are sitting collecting dust as we speak if not more.

Of course account names would not be involved in this, you are stuck with those.

Anyways that's my suggestion. Throw some feedback at this! Assassin47

[Cynar]

Most people come back and check in pretty frequently believe it or not. They may only hang around for a day or two when they do, but it would make it very difficult to do something like this. We also have a staff of 9 with 14k accounts. We simply don't have the time to monitor and maintain. It's also not an automated feature i would trust knowing how databases work.

[ASSASSIN47]

Very sad to hear such a quick and cut response to this. Naming your toons is one of the most important things in my gaming experience. it dictates what that toon will do.. ENT, Combat, Doctor, ect. It also gives a smile on my face when I play a toon that I enjoy logging onto, not one that I say well I guess ill get on that guy today. This is a huge deal to myself and I'm sure many others.

As for them logging on once in a while, I guess their account wont show as inactive for that year. You only need to look at account inactivity not toon inactivity. If the account hasn't been touched in a year, the toon names on that account should be fair game. I am only talking about the ones over a year old. This is simplicity. you look at a account and say ok not been on in a year... how hard can that be to even look up or code it in a data base. I also work with computers, but its not about that, its doing something for the community. Sometimes the little things add up. Its the little things that make me wanna say to other people I enjoy playing here because of x y and z. I enjoy playing here because they do what other servers don't do.

I would like to get others input on this as well. The heart of my toons are who they are to me, not to anyone else!

[Anlbrd]

Tbh you've had the only input that matters mate. This is an issue in all gaming and the reason a lot of players take ever more esoteric names, so as to avoid your predicament.

Re: the name determining what you do. I think you're vastly overstating the importance of it, personally. I say that as someone who semi-built an online persona attached to the name. If I couldn't have my name here, I'd make a variation of it and work with what I had. The name I've settled on ultimately IS a variation on a name that I didn't want to get banned from as it didn't translate well out of the setting I created it for.

[Cynar]

Very sad to hear such a quick and cut response to this. Naming your toons is one of the most important things in my gaming experience. it dictates what that toon will do.. ENT, Combat, Doctor, ect. It also gives a smile on my face when I play a toon that I enjoy logging onto, not one that I say well I guess ill get on that guy today. This is a huge deal to myself and I'm sure many others.

As for them logging on once in a while, I guess their account wont show as inactive for that year. You only need to look at account inactivity not toon inactivity. If the account hasn't been touched in a year, the toon names on that account should be fair game. I am only talking about the ones over a year old. This is simplicity. you look at a account and say ok not been on in a year... how hard can that be to even look up or code it in a data base. I also work with computers, but its not about that, its doing something for the community. Sometimes the little things add up. Its the little things that make me wanna say to other people I enjoy playing here because of x y and z. I enjoy playing here because they do what other servers don't do.

I would like to get others input on this as well. The heart of my toons are who they are to me, not to anyone else!

Wow, yeah let's go look through the database to see who hasn't logged in a year and then let's take their name away. That seems real fair. I mean maybe they have been deployed overseas and can't play or maybe they've had health problems and had to take an extensive break. I can't tell you how long at one point I took a break from a mmorpg, then went back. I would have been pissed had they changed my name.

As far as responses to you got an honest and fair one. I think I've said all I can say without being rude. You can discuss it all you would like to, but it won't change the fact it ain't gonna happen.

[CNiper]

I'm honestly curious what names were you trying? Most names aren't reflective of someone's profession, unless they are pretty clever.

I think its pretty obvious like MrDoctor and Scoutymcscoutscout will probably be taken. I'm sorry your kids had to go through DAYS of searching for names, they probably thought you were being weird and obsessive.

[nethel]

I'm honestly curious what names were you trying? Most names aren't reflective of someone's profession, unless they are pretty clever.

I think its pretty obvious like MrDoctor and Scoutymcscoutscout will probably be taken. I'm sorry your kids had to go through DAYS of searching for names, they probably thought you were being weird and obsessive.

I've almost maxed out my account with 10 characters and have yet to run into not being able to find a name. I can't imagine spending more than 10 minutes thinking of a name for a character.

[Pyrozest]

Its one of the joys of this server that there is no wipe and names don't get wiped either. There is a comfort in that just like in Live. Cynar has to deal with a lot of requests for information and lots of them tend to be trying patience of any caliber so don't feel disrespected for a quick and short explanation against your request. Perhaps there is room for change in the future most likely not or not for a LOOONNNG time. There are other priorities in what the staff is working on, and the staff isn't getting paid. I hope you enjoy this server. Names being taken aside (I have names I really want but they too are taken)...its a great community when you start to see and know the personality of the staff and players.

[Koven]

And what would you suggest if the name(s) you want has already been taken by an active player? I can certainly understand the disappointment of not being able to name your character what you want, especially if you have used that name for years and across multiple games. But when it comes to MMOs this is always a possibility, and I don't think the solution is to take the ball away from someone else because you don't feel they play with it often enough.

The argument that this "feature" would benefit the community, or would help attract newcomers is ridiculous. If I heard that Awakening would take away the identity of players toon(s) for taking the time to finish school, serve their country, attending to family/personal matters, or simply because they wanted a break... I would not consider that a selling point.

Find some variant of the name(s) you wanted and move on. Personally, I have fun in this game whether my character's name was chosen by me or the generator during creation. That might be due to the fact the experience extends way beyond a moniker to include a great community and dedicated dev team.

[102030405]

First come first serve. name is taken best find a new one.

I use the same name in every game I play, if it happens to be taken because I came to the game late I suck it up and find something else. that's game life mate, get used to it.

you also must not be very creative if it took you days to find a name. but whatever I think i've said too much now.

[shadowfox]

how hard can that be to even look up or code it in a data base

If you ask this question, right here, then you know absolutely nothing about Berkeley Databases. The name is a link by the way. Currently, the iteration of the B-DB used by most SWGEmu servers is NOT user friendly for searching AT ALL. Whether or not I agree or disagree, with your question/suggestion/plight/issue is beside the point. The DB is not easily navigated. I would go to SWGEmu and check out the site, before stating hyperbole about your qualifications. Especially with oracle based DBs.

[QuorTek]

I have a bunch of unique names myself I am far from as active as I used to be, usually spending time day to day looking for new resources and eventually adding some more stuff to my vendors being in a semi inactive state in a figure of speech, but I still log on a few times a week to do some trivial tasks inside the game... and one day expecting to return to more active duty myself as it is, I don't see why people should give up their names just like that.

Also if anything with names should be done it could be to have a better filter to get rid of silly or troll names.... anything else would not really seem fair.

[wheatsquid]

I'm honestly curious what names were you trying? Most names aren't reflective of someone's profession, unless they are pretty clever.

I think its pretty obvious like MrDoctor and Scoutymcscoutscout will probably be taken. I'm sorry your kids had to go through DAYS of searching for names, they probably thought you were being weird and obsessive.

I've almost maxed out my account with 10 characters and have yet to run into not being able to find a name. I can't imagine spending more than 10 minutes thinking of a name for a character.

Same here. Even on live I never ran into a naming problem. The best way around this is to just be a non-human and then you can make up whatever you want and have it be meaningful. Though I guess you can do that with humans too. Non-issue.

[Fish]

Bah silly hUman names.................

[alanjferg]

In all my years of playing an MMO, I've never really had a problem finding a name. It's about being creative and thinking a bit. Spending days is a bit odd. Did you not want to play the game? The random name generator is pretty good for a typical Star Wars name. I'd be annoyed if someone changed my name.

When it comes to names the combinations of letters are just almost infinite, so I suggest being creative and trying out different names.