I know, baby, just how you feel
You got to roll with the punches
And get to what’s real
No the truth is Blizzard created this problem.
The system they have now allows people to hoard names forever unless they truly quit the game. A person has to be non-paying for 2 xpacs, which is four years. Let’s say there’s a person that was lucky enough to get the name John and he quit in MoP. Then he came back in WoD to check it out, didn’t like it, then quit again. Timer reset. Did the same in Legion so that resets the timer too. Didn’t come back for BfA but checked out SL so the timer is now reset again.
We used to be able to request a name release and they would give it to us if the player had been non-paying for over a year. I never felt like I needed to hoard names back then. I mean, I had a few I knew I was use in the future but I didn’t hoard names I knew I didn’t want and kept them for trade.
So sure we could release these names into the wild but the dream you have isn’t going to happen. Some sparkly eye noob isn’t going to get the perfect name, no another hoarder that doesn’t post here for you to wag your finger at is going to snatch it up for their collection.
If this practice truly bothers you, why don’t you get off your high horse, smash that in game or out-of-game suggestion button and tell Blizzard that their naming policy sucks. Let them know this easily resettable timer has created a name trading community. Let us go back to manually requesting a name release or shorten the timer to two years.
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The thing that makes me laugh about the people against people having a bunch of names is that the names aren’t even roleplay names & they mostly have cool names too so you know they’re probably playing the same name game.
The people who are against this just don’t understand that the names most of us have are names we swap out from time to time, every name on my list has been in use by a max level character at some point.
Also, the character limit per 1 account is 60 characters, I have less than 60 names, so clearly they’re all on one account. You can see by my current list that I have up that I am using quite a few of the names as they are marked with a ‘*’, others on that list have just come off of cooldown, as I was using them about two months ago before I deleted some of my old characters.
What Sef said here is the main reason I started posting in this thread, my dream names are on characters that haven’t been logged into since MoP, I advertise the names I have in hopes that I can trade/give someone the name they want, as opposed to it being on an alt that is lost to time potentially forever.
If you had any sense you’d look through the thread and see that I’ve been trading names through said thread. (And some I traded for through friends of friends before this thread existed.) I have traded for almost all of my names, aside from a few that I managed to get when just trying for a name upon making a new alt.
Nobody has the amount of time you’re implying I waste, except for apparently people like you that go to threads like these and complain about people partaking in said threads.
I think I’m going to take Silence’s advice here, it’s only clogging the thread and making it harder for folks to see what names we’re offering. 
Couldn’t have said it better myself, thank you, Tovi.
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The wild dream you have isn’t going to happen. Some sparkly-eye Blizzard dev isn’t going to see your request and wave a wand and completely overhaul blizzard’s naming system.
What exactly is a roleplay name? Do you have to RP to have the name you want for your character? 
This is uncalled for.
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This is better than I could imagine
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I mean, Blizzard used to force renames for characters who didn’t have “roleplay names” on roleplay realms (I got one a long time ago in Mists or something), so I guess you can ask Blizzard or something. Idk!
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I was on ED when they had the big RP name war. Zerg guilds would mass-report each other’s members and get auto-flagged in the spirit of “if I can’t have it neither can you”.
This expac, in a MG guild I was in, a guildie bragged about reporting any name that wasn’t a “name” but was a “word” instead. Still, in 2022, someone having a “nickname” as a character name and their character’s full name in TRP was one of the most pressing issues in their life.
Tbh I don’t think Blizz acts on name reports all that much unless they’re totally inappropriate. I’ve had people tell me I’m reported and never once had a name change come through
Yeah… I know you’re trying to be clever but complaining does work. Mount collectors complained so much that we got the 500 reward changed twice.
However, wagging his finger at people hoarding names isn’t going to do jack.
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I’ve had a few over the (many) years but I think it was mass reporting by haters, I tend to agree that it’s really just a waste of CS time. Hopefully they flag people as karens/kevins on the back end!!
Not me sitting here wracking my brain through hundreds of names, and remembering that this thread exists.
Hoarding names is so gross.
Your post replicates how I feel better than I could have expressed.
Argh, the frustration is real.
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I would argue more people collect mounts as opposed to those that are frustrated with Blizzard’s naming system… at least I don’t see many threads on the subject. I don’t see much outcry for Blizzard to do anything substantial so yes Borgg’s lone complaint would be as effective as “finger-wagging”
He is free to share his opinion and vent his frustration here just as anyone else (within the TOS obviously) and that includes “finger-wagging”.
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I want to break the TOS by finger wagging. Finger wagging so hard it breaks the TOS into 500 little pieces
I never said he couldn’t and you would be wrong about the naming thing. All you would have to do is check out Customer Support or the General Discussion sometimes to see threads complaining about names.
This has been said multiple times that Blizzard should allow spaces, hyphens and apostrophes. Lower the timer. Allow us to request name releases. Connect a dead realm to a full realm so people could transfer servers and use names there.
But whatever. Just like he’s free to finger-wag well people are free to ignore him and continue to hoard names.
I just see it as pointless projection. Imagined power-play scenarios that don’t happen in reality, essentially beaming your own anxiety, insecurity, anger etc. into a version of a transaction that only exists in your mind.
The original versions of this thread were made during times when people were coming here and asking for names. These types of thread consolidated that. I was one of those people in Wrath, looking for “Sefa”, which is still on a low-level Tauren. I hold whoever that is no ill-will… it’s of no consequence at all.
I’ve been trying to make new characters on MG, where names seem more scarce than here. As I hold down alt to type Old English words in, I’m not blaming people holding names.
Similarly, the last thing I’m thinking when I read “what I do…” posts is ascribe some marker of morality or “goodness” to anyone.
I don’t even have great name saved anymore. I think I have 1 or 2 good names on WrA saved for an Evoker and if I transfer my goblins over from ED/MG.
The names I had saved for mechagnomes and other characters before they banned multiboxing, I’ve released.
But I have a great name for an Evoker here, which won’t be my main Evoker and I’ll barely play after they hit cap – pretty much the exact same thing as keeping it on a level 1 IMO.
Looking for the name Blackthorn. HMU with price if you have it. Brandt#11568
Character services are on sale this weekend, for anyone looking to use a new name or whatever
I also believe the name release has occurred based on some names I was able to get on Moon Guard so call dibs now
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It absolutely occurred (99% sure) based on the names I’m seeing available right now on WrA. Stunning to see some of what’s been freed.
That said, there’s only one name I want at this point and it’s still taken by a lowbie. It has been since Cata, which is when I started looking for it. Obviously the person plays/logs in, but not this character.
C’est la vie!
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