Names, Name Hoarding, & My Thoughts

This is in response to the current thread in the WoW Community Council:

Many of the suggestions in that thread are great–specifically being able to add last names for our characters. That said, there may be races or people who don’t want a last name. Being able to have monikers (like "the Bold, or the Just, or Lord of Stormwind) would be great, but we already have titles for that purpose. That said, I still think monikers (in spite of achievements) would be a great way for characters to be able to differentiate themselves. So, in essence, allow for a last name AND a moniker. Or let players just have a first name only with none of that–but allow others to have the same name with those two aforementioned differentiations.

AS for freeing up names–perhaps have a way to add your name to a list for a certain name. For example, set up a command like the following:

/waitlist <character name here>

Every three months, have the system do a character name purge of inactive accounts–accounts that have not been logged into the game for more than six months without an active subscription. Then the first person on the list will have the chance to get the name for say…two weeks, after which it goes to the next person on the list and so on. This allows for people who are really looking for a certain name to be able to have a chance at it without needing to keep checking time and time again.

As for active accounts, I’d say if a character name is just being “held” and a character hasn’t been logged in ever and has remained that way for six months, it should also be considered part of the name purging system. It isn’t fair that people hoard names in the hopes that they’ll get gold for it by trying to sell it within the community.

And lastly, if active account, character lower than level 15, and hasn’t been logged in in over a year, the character should be added to those purged names, as well. This forces name hoarders to actually do something, however small, in order to keep a name they are hoping to sell for in-game gold. It doesn’t stop the problem altogether, but at least it minimizes some of the easier ways hoarding can occur.

With ALL of those additions, this could be a surefire way for people to have the names they want without too much fuss and complaining from the community at large.

But how do we now add people to our friends list?–you may be asking. First, keep the right click ‘Add to Friends’ ability, but make it so that people have the option to accept or reject your offer. Better yet, add an option for someone in the Options tab to reject ALL friend requests–much like we have with guilds and the like. This can help protect people from unwanted stalking or other concerns they might have and be a tool for parents to ensure that their kids are making friends that are parent-approved first.

For those without that option tacked on, create a drop-down list of all people that have that name after you do /friend character name. This way you can pick the one with the right last name or moniker and go from there. Problem solved.

Last, but not least, you can add an option in the Options tab to accept All friend requests–similar to the accepting none of them, with the default being that you have to approve another person’s adding you to their list. This allows for the possible variations of gameplay and ensures that players have agency and choice over who can and can’t contact them or know when they log on, etc.

It might also be nice to have an “Incognito” mode–where you can log on and do things without informing people that you’ve done so–in guilds, friend lists, etc. I imagine there are times when leaders of communities and guilds would rather just have some time to themselves, and this would allow for that.

And I guess that’s it for now! I am ready for the mudslinging and vitriol, GD. Do your worst! grin wink But really, any thoughts and suggestions would be welcome–even if it’s just “nope”.

Quick addendum to this:

There are people who have died and their accounts still remain–a memorial to them by some of their friends and families. Perhaps there could be a way to turn those accounts into Memorial Accounts (so that those names wouldn’t be lost). Maybe a $20 donation kind of thing to keep those names set aside in perpetuity. With maybe…a “Memorium Wall” that can be found on the Blizzard site? I really like this idea, too, as it allows for us to remain a part of the game even after we’re gone.

Anyway…just a thought to keep those names on accounts that aren’t active but are kept for the purposes of memorializing those who are gone alive in that way.

Edited to add the idea for Memorium Accounts and a Memorial Wall kept on the Blizzard site for those who have passed while playing the game of WoW.

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This isn’t going to end well.

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Saangreal “Saan” Al-Thor-Damodred of the Waterless Sands. Interim War Chief

TRP3 solves some of these

:ocean: :crab: :ocean: :crab:

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So if I have to take a 2 year hiatus from one of my lesser played alt characters, and then someone decides they want that name (even though I’m active on other mains). I just have to be okay to get an alt auto name wiped and revert to anonchar8908 because why not?

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If you’ve gotten them past level 15, this will never come into play at all. And that’s, probably, at most 1 to 2 hours of gameplay for those races that start at level 10 already, and maybe 5 hours for characters that start at level 1. It’s a time investment that ensures that you’re …you know… invested in the character and the name. You took the time to create the character and play it rather than let it languish.

This also ensures that people that want to keep their names also need to keep their subscriptions current–something I imagine Blizzard would be happy for. Not that I’m advocating that people ought to pay them money, but if you’re holding on to characters and character names…and aren’t playing the game, but someone else is? Shouldn’t they be allowed to have the name they’re looking for? You haven’t been subscribed in over six months. That’s a lot of time. Maybe we could extend it to a year? Would that be better? The point is, there are a lot of inactive accounts, at this point, where there are characters that haven’t been played, and it would be nice, in my opinion, to see those names opened up for newer players to find and have access to them.

But I get that some people might find that objectionable. My thought was just to try and do it the best way possible in order to reach a good compromise for everyone.

If the names taken it’s taken. Move on and find a different one

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I see what you’re saying. I’ve had a level 8 mage bank alt for 15 years, and that’s all she’s ever meant to be. I’m not interested in playing her through the content, she’s just my auctioneer. If they tried to implement this rule, I’d just bite the bullet and get her the last 2 necessary levels. But… I mean, should I have to name lock her by getting her to level 10 and then still logging her at the end of each expansion when I need to do mass clean outs of my banks and vaults offloading onto the AH?

I dunno.

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Quick addendum to this:

There are people who have died and their accounts still remain–a memorial to them by some of their friends and families. Perhaps there could be a way to turn those accounts into Memorial Accounts (so that those names wouldn’t be lost). Maybe a $20 donation kind of thing to keep those names set aside in perpetuity. With maybe…a “Memorium Wall” that can be found on the Blizzard site? I really like this idea, too, as it allows for us to remain a part of the game even after we’re gone.

Anyway…just a thought to keep those names on accounts that aren’t active but are kept for the purposes of memorializing those who are gone alive in that way.

If the names taken move on.

Not sure why this such ab issue.

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I do like some of the ideas you’ve suggested, although I’m unsure how many of them might be plausible given how much dev time they might take compared to how niche they are.

Surnames for characters is a pretty common fix amongst RPGs. It solves the issue fighting for the character name and allows for some extra character customization. This is one of the solutions that I think is more plausible because it has multiple benefits and has been shown to work elsewhere.

I do like the moniker idea as well, although I don’t think it fixes as many issues as the surname feature. Titles do overlap a good amount, but there might be a way to either use set titles earned through achievements OR use a moniker that has some limited customization. Kind of like how they do demon names for warlocks, have a prefix and a suffix, but you get to chose between some options. A lot of games have something similar to this and you could perhaps unlock even more options through achievements. For example.

1st choice: Lord, Paragon, Warrior, Sage, Servant, Harbinger, Reaper, etc.
2nd choice: of, of the, etc.
3rd choice: Alliance, Horde, Dance, Souls, Void, Arcane, Vengeance, Salvation, etc.

I’m not sure how likely that is to happen, but that type of system is featured in games across many genres from Monster Hunter to Helldivers.

As for freeing up names, I do think it should be more frequently than every 2 expansions or so and it should be apparent when it’s going to happen. RIght now it’s just clunky and many people are likely to miss out on it.

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This is really the only thing I’ve ever thought about any of it. Millions, probably billions of choices for names, just make something up. Be creative. It’s not that hard.

With nearly 50 characters, all of them uniquely named, I think I only have one that has an actual common word for a name. Another has a name no one else has, either in game or out. Maybe more do, IDK.

I’ve never really understood why people feel entitled to take names for their own characters that were created or used by others for their characters, no matter how long it’s been since that player logged in. How rude!

If I leave the game for a period of time, I expect that everything on my account will stay the same, period. Blizzard taking away my characters’ names would likely mean I wouldn’t come back.

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The doctrine of “finders keepers” still applies though, even though it’s a video game, so disagree with you here

To use an analogy from real-life: person A showed up to the parking lot at a popular venue (…the game) at 6 AM to get the best spot (…a BiS/desirable name) while person B showed up super late around 2 PM when it was already packed with cars and thus got a crappier/further away spot like 2 miles away from the front door - then started crying about “its not fair”. Is it person A’s fault that person B didn’t have the creativity or presence of mind to think of the unique name first? No. Is it person A’s fault that person B is a more recent player/late-comer? No. And so on and so on

Like I said, the doctrine of “finder’s keepers” is always in effect

A player who is a paying customer with an active account should be able to “hoard” as many names as he pleases. Now as for inactive accounts/non-paying customers? I believe there is already an existing “2 expansions in a row” expiration date for holding names… so perhaps they could shorten the inactivity condition to like 1 year or something

But anyways, active/paying customers should be allowed to keep as many reserved names as they are willing to spend character slots on. I see no issue with it

Whether or not you think it’s “fair” isn’t really relevant as already explained above… such as the parking lot spaces from real life example. Lots of things in real-life aren’t fair, and unfairness (whether real or perceived) extends to the video game world as well

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In my case, I’ve been trying to recover a character name. My second character was a dwarven rogue and after sounding out some names I came up with Grundle. No one, including myself, knew the urban dictionary version of the word back in 2004/2005. But a few months in, a GM contacted me in game to tell me that I would have to change the character name and why. That was fine.

Fast forward a couple years, I see a priest named Grundle on my server. I put in a GM ticket asking about it, and they couldn’t find a record of my forced name change, so they couldn’t help me. Fast forward many years, there are many Grundles across many servers with a number of them being level 70. The name obviously isn’t an issue anymore.

The name is still taken on my server, but they don’t show up on the armory, so I’m figuring they must be low level. I added them to friends to my friends list once back in the day and never saw them above level 10.

tl;dr - I just want my original character name back since there is obviously no issue with the name anymore but the current system for recovering names from unused characters is awful.

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The actual answer is to revert back to our edgy teen years and use alt code characters if the name is taken.

Shâdöwvîxÿn

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Ah, I do remember those days of the internet.

Those are the type of character names that I whisper by accessing them through my friends list or just don’t whisper at all. Too much effort. I’d be too lazy to do it even if it came to mailing my own characters something.

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I mean that’s an unfortunate situation but end of the day if it’s not available move on or use alt codes.

I’m in the same boat with “Snoz” I lost it when I server transferred.

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Back in 2008 I transferred from a low-pop server to a high-pop server, and of course… my name was already taken on the high-pop server

So I just tossed a special character on it and went about my day, wasn’t really a big deal

Sometimes things aren’t fair or don’t play out the way you want them to, and that’s ok you just move on

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True, it sucks when it was forced by a GM, but that’s how it goes.

My main complaint is how Blizzard chooses to free up the names. Because they do, it’s just arbitrary and with no warning. They could make it more transparent or announce a day when it was going to happen. A blue post would solve a lot of issues.

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Just increase the character limit and allow a space, apostrophe, or hyphen.

Purging character names after 6 months is nonsense.

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Please yes to this. What I would really like is if you could only have ONE name on the list, per account. Maybe 2 from having a sub running for a full year.

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