This story is a little long but important to me. I require assistance with the name of character I deleted whose name is somehow still in use, despite the character having been deleted.
Background:
The placeholder character was on the Remulos realm, visible after the TBC pre-patch issues were resolved.
The character was a Level 1 holder that I intended to name my Shaman with. There was a previous L52 Paladin on my account with the same name that I deleted several months ago, after I decided to make my Draenei with that name.
After deleting my Level 52 Paladin, I created a Level 1 with the same name and it was sitting there happily for several months.
Today:
When I logged in after the servers just went live, the Level 1 character was there. I deleted it, and then tried to create my Draenei with the same name. I immediately got the error āThis name is already in use.ā.
I checked my āUndelete Characterā list, and found the Paladin was eligible for restoration so I tried to restore the Paladin. It was named āName!ā and flagged for a name change. It would not let me change the name back to the original name, as I thought deleting the Paladin again might free it up for my Shaman.
Is there anything that I can do here?
All characters were on the same account, same server.
I found a previous post here by Vrakthis that seems to suggest that as long as it was on the same account, I should be able to re-use the name immediately if the placeholder character was deleted.
Same exact thing here, I opened a ticket and am currently fuming over it. I want to start my shaman but I canāt without her name I picked 2 years ago.
I know itās a huge issue for you right in this very instant, but I do hope the fact that this pre-patch dropped less than twelve hours ago helps to temper your expectations. The forums have umpteen threads open with other issues too. There isnāt a āsnap your fingersā and make it right resolution.
Submit a ticket, post in the bug forum. Here on this forum, itās one for players to assist other players. There are no GMs, no Devs here. Our Blues, while pretty rad, are SFAs and have nothing to do with these kinds of things. You will need to have patience as tickets are answered in the order that they are received, and the system is a bit crowded today, I imagine.
Thanks, Telmeri. Unfortunately, I believe I found it.
Looks like you deleted the level 1 with the name at 9:01:07 UTC, and because the name was held by a character under level 30 it became available immediately. Someone else snagged it at 9:01:29 UTC.
Right? Iād love to take a look at the data for the naming system sometime and see just how many of the same popular names are tried for in a given period of time.
What happened to character names being reserved for 30 days? This exactly same thing is possibly happening to me as well. I deleted a character then tried to make one and it was unavailable. then I tried to undelete and it errored and said no character available.
If the character was level 29 or less, then the name is made available immediately to anyone. The only time a 30 day hold is placed is if the character that was deleted was level 30 or higher.
Wow thats super unlucky, even if the name is popular, sniping it 20 seconds after is quite something. Imagine the odds for something like this to happen, they must be below 0.001%.
I wish Blizzard would not free the names up within such a short amount of time. Make it 10 minutes for level 1s or so.
In the end, the naming system is just so outdated, we all have a battle tag anyways, so that names could be used by more than just 1 person or allow surnames. Surnames fix so many problems.
This would be an excellent way to submit a suggestion via the appropriate channels, either by posting in General Discussion or using the Submit Feedback feature in-game.
I donāt believe it was taken that fast. thereās currently no record of a toon with the same name ever raiding in classic so how would it suddenly be in use seconds after 18 months being used?
As noted, the character name is only reserved if the character is level 30+. The character that was holding the name for you appears to have been level 1.
Because someone claimed it.
Given the relative uniqueness of the name, my guess would be that someone was aware that you were creating a new character to use that name on and sniped it. Sorry, Thengel.
One way Iāve heard this happens is when someone decides to delete their character and send the gear to an alt. Someone seeing a char with a name they want standing stripped at a mailbox. Theyāll log and start spamming the name in hopes the character is being deleted.