So, I apologize for posting this type of discussion/question because I bet it gets brought up here all the time, but was unable to find clarification of the issue on other posts.
I saw that Blizzard’s official stance on character names is that they will automatically be freed up if the account that has the name has been inactive for the past two expansion.
However, I’ve seen some people say that even though their account was active, one of their character’s names was taken, probably an alt that was being used to save a name.
So, I was curious if the account itself has to be inactive or if the specific character does, because there’s a name I want on Area 52 that belongs to a level 50 that looks like it hasn’t been touched since before Antorus came out, which was November 28th 2017.
This leads me to my next question: Does it have to be the past two expansions? Because by that logic that means I’d have to wait until the end of Shadowlands to be able to grab that name. BFA being the first, and SL being the second. Or is there another period of time Blizzard uses? Because that character will have been inactive for four years this November.
I don’t know about the account, I can just see that that specific character seemingly has not been logged into since before Antorus came out. It has no progression in Antorus, BFA raids, or SL content. The most recent achieves the character got were in September 2017.
So, realistically I could be totally wrong and that account could very well be active and they just haven’t done anything with that character, but that’s why I was asking and provided the different experiences people have had where they’ve been active but their character names have been taken.
Also, if the character has Legion achievements, but is level 50, that means it has been active since 9.0. The character would have had to have logged in in order to undergo the level squish.
They could have let the account lapse after setting up a low level twink to spam bgs in the 20’s bracket and been playing all along. I have a level 6 twink on one of my accounts that no one will ever see except in person.
In fact, I suspect that the requirement is by bnet, so if they have another account they play on the same bnet, they might all still be unavailable.
When I wanted the name George, I surfed until I found it somewhere on an obscure server. Waiting and expecting a popular name to become available is only setting yourself up for disappointment.
I’m not quite sure that’s how that works. You can’t see 110 or 120 characters on the armory anymore, as far as I can tell.
Plus, there are zero account-wide achievements for like… Heart of Azeroth, Island Expeditions, etc. Collection achievements are usually account-wide too and the last one they got was 2017 or 2018. So it looks like the account was used in 2018 but I believe that was the most recent activity.
If they got an achievement in 2018, you have at least a year before that name becomes available. I suggest trying at least weekly to see if it has become available.
Yeah the last achieve they got from what I can tell was about a month before BFA came out. And one of the first things you do in BFA is get HoA, which they do not have an achievement for, but I don’t remember if that one was account-wide or not. But, yeah, you’re right, best thing to do is to just try weekly and hopefully get somewhere with it.
I have never heard of that happening, not even once that I can remember. As long as the account is active and being played within the two expansions, all you names are safe.
You can try and petition it but I doubt they will make an exception to the rule. Because if the form name holder returned, they would be within their rights to chew out Blizzard over breaking their own policy on it.
it’s happened.
it happened to a whole bunch of people (myself included)
i think it was some time around the 3rd automated batch name release.
masses of names were freed up in error.
it was a mistake, and wasn’t meant to happen.
i haven’t heard of it happening since, but that doesn’t mean it can’t happen again.
You can’t steal names from active players. How do you know that this character hasn’t been touched since then?
It has to be from an account that has been inactive for two full expansions. So if the account has been inactive since the end of legion, you’ll have to wait until the beginning of the next expansion to steal the name. If the account is still active, you’re sol, go find a new name.
There are options for hiding achievements. This character could be used as a bank alt or for running old content. You have no idea when that account was last used.
It’s based fully on when the account itself was active last.
Even if a person hasn’t played the specific character with the name you want, if they’ve logged in at all in 2 expansions they keep the name.
With the said, names free to release, release randomly so it’s not like one day every single name on an inactive for two expansions account just becomes available.
All of its gear is greyed out, as in it has been inactive for a long time. Plus, I don’t think they’d have achievement shown and then just randomly turned off lmao.
