This game has been around for quite some time now, and there are a lot of people who have come and gone or no longer play a particular character. Can we please just free up the names at this point?
I know Blizzard says, “If they are inactive for 2 expansions, then it frees up”. I have yet to see this be true and I can actually prove this because I have an old account that has been inactive for more than 2 expansions, and it says the name is taken (by me).
So, can we just change this “rule” to be if they haven’t logged in to the character in 12 months the name becomes available, or something like that?
Well i can prove the opposite. I moved servers and had to change a few character names because they were taken. At the start of the next expansion the name release or whatever you want to call it occurred and I got some of my names back, but not others.
One helpful solution would be to allow dual names. I could be Kneeshooter Baggins, for example. Well, you get the idea And the surname could be used by others as long as the both names werent the same.
Are their exceptions to this rule? I haven’t even dropped my WoW sub since, like, Cataclysm, much less had my entire BattleNet be inactive, and I had maybe half a dozen old characters get hit for renaming somewhere along the way.
What you think is an inactive character may not be. You have no way to actually know if someone else’s character is not being used. Bank alts are a prime example of a character that might look like it doesn’t get used when checking things like Armory, but are actually logged into daily, etc.
Are you sure the name is your old one? It may have been freed up and someone else took it. The only way to know for sure would be to try to log in and see if it lets you keep the old name.
I don’t understand why they can’t use a system that’s already in place in another game (D3/4) that just shows your battle tag to others. Because I have three characters on seasonal and my mom has one with the same names and it causes no issues.
They do free them up but they don’t announce it when they do. I have snagged the names Bless, Divine, Lilith, Storm, Isaiah, Fennec, Fluffy, Mechanic, Tinkertoy, Glitter, Runt, and more on realms where the names were previously not available. I check every now and then and try to make a character with the names I want.
What name on what realm were you trying to get btw?
And the surname could be used by others as long as the both names werent the same.