Name database - Will this get cleaned up?

[Pony Up]

How many people are sitting on names?  Will there be a clean up?  Because this is worse than OG COH.

[Go0gleplex]

I'm sitting on a pillow...no names. 😉   

 

Seriously though, some folks have a LOT (scores to hundreds) of alts and if running groups, get them to 50 fast so those are legit protected and wouldn't free up anyhow. I've got about 20 toons myself that I rotate playing and I'm sure I'm not alone in that. Several times I've had to come up with different names than I first thought up though, just part of the inventive thought process. 

[ZorkNemesis]

There is a policy in place that hasn't been implemented but warnings exist in the interface.  I think if the policy is implemented now, characters below level 5 can lose their name in 30 days of being offline, while anything 5-49 has a year to login and keep it.  Level 50s are locked in.

 

Live didn't have any name release policies if I recall, but there were twice as many shard so I don't think it was as big a problem then either.

[Ruin Mage]

Think the next step has been giga-delayed due to bugs with the warning system.

[Parabola]

I also suspect there is a certain level of nervousness about turning on the name release system, and if there isn't there should be. People who can't get what they want become upset. People who had something and have it taken from them get UPSET. I don't entirely disagree with the policy but I wouldn't do it if I were them.

[Water]

I log my valuable (to me) names so that they don't hit the loss threshold, just in case. And I also remove those I don't wish to use. Essentially I sit on the ones I want for the future and have released those I will never use.

 

[Ironblade]

16 hours ago, Pony Up said:

How many people are sitting on names?  Will there be a clean up?  Because this is worse than OG COH.

Define "sitting on".  Plenty of people have pages of level 50 characters who are immune to the name release policy.  Personally, have 43 characters at level 50 and 6 at lower levels.

 

Will there be a clean-up?  Maybe.  Maybe not.  The devs have looked at the situation and the simple fact is that it's not going to free up vast numbers of good names.  It just isn't.

 

You'll just have to deal with it.  We're all in the same boat.  When I create a new character, I have the same odds as someone who signed up yesterday at getting a name I want.  Well, maybe my odds are better because I do a lot of concept characters with odd names: Fidgety Girl, Sparkie McSparkface, Toggle Man, etc.

[arcane]

Just come up with more original names, thanks 🙂

[sbloyd]

I know this sounds kind of smarmy, but there's good sides to the lack of 'free' names, inasmuch as it forces me to be more creative with my naming.  Heck, one of my favourites, "Chernobyl Effect", would not have that name as I originally tried something simple like "Radioactive Girl".

Edited January 26 by sbloyd

[Oubliette_Red]

I was amazed at the names I was seeing when the licensing news broke and a lot of new folks were showing up in AP.

 

All the "good names" are not gone.

 

[Seed22]

17 hours ago, Pony Up said:

How many people are sitting on names?  Will there be a clean up?  Because this is worse than OG COH.

I have 100 50s. I play about 5 at any given time, I guess you could say im camping names but I know no one would want(nor will I ever give) any of my names

[ZemX]

16 hours ago, ZorkNemesis said:

Live didn't have any name release policies if I recall, but there were twice as many shard so I don't think it was as big a problem then either.

 

The number of available character slots was also very limited, especially for F2P accounts.  I don't have a 100 level 50s like some people around here, but I have quite a few more characters on more servers than I ever did on Live.

[Ael]

I have literally hundreds of alts, I won't lie. All of them are above level 10. All of the names/toons I absolutely love are already at 50, built, and most are T3 incarnate at least. Despite the number of alts that I have, very few non-50s have super-awesome names that other people would clamor for. If I get a good name that I adore, I play it to 50.

[ZemX]

If we're placing bets, I think it's likely that policy gets turned on at some point in the not too distant future.  In hindsight, it now seems likely they turned on the warning system because they knew the license was probably going to happen at some point.

[WanderingAries]

3 hours ago, arcane said:

Just come up with more original names, thanks 🙂

 

It sounds harsh, but yeah, this is what it boils down to. Hell, even on Live I ended up going the route of names based on the Bios / Backgrounds, so I ended up with several different languages in my list. I'm not an artist of any means, but you've gotta be creative in MMOs.

[Luminara]

Don't look at me.  I had to clean the toilets last week.  It's someone else's turn.

[eiynp]

they made a mistake by giving everybody essentially infinite character slots right at the get go; I get why they did, but it just encourages people to sit on however many names they can think of. Unfortunately I doubt there's any walking that back.

 

it's well and good to tell people to be more creative but it's also pretty discouraging to come up with 10-12 ideas for a particular concept character's handle and find every one taken

[macskull]

I'm on the side of the fence that thinks literally nothing good can come of the name release policy, but there are plenty of downsides.

 

"Just get your character to level 50 and its name will be safe forever!" Sure, but there are plenty of players, even veteran players, who roll so many alts that they could play for years and never get to level 50. Are they any less invested in those characters than I am because they did not level them to 50?

 

"Names from inactive players should be able to be taken by active players." Sure, it makes sense at face value, but if for some reason a player was unable to get into the game for an extended period of time (maybe they're unable to play due to an extended medical issue, maybe they're in the military and are on a deployment without internet access, maybe their computer broke and they're not in a financial state to replace it, the list goes on, but it's really no one's business except theirs) and they returned after that absence only to find the names of the characters they liked had been taken by someone else, they'd probably be justifiably upset.

 

Here's my philosophy on it, summed up: "the negative effects of an existing player losing the name of their character outweighs the negative effects of a new player not getting the name they want."

 

Besides, even with a 20-character limit the name box can still fit almost 3x10⁴⁵ possible combinations. If you're unable to find a name you like with that many possible combinations, you might want to come up with a name that's actually original.

Edited January 25 by macskull

[eiynp]

if someone leveled a character to 50 I don't really have a problem with them keeping the name; at least that demonstrates a level of commitment to the idea/concept/whatever

 

but just anecdotally I know people with multiple pages' worth of level 1-10 alts that've been in 'ehhh maybe I'll use this name someday' purgatory for years, and I think that kinda sucks

[macskull]

Just now, eiynp said:

if someone leveled a character to 50 I don't really have a problem with them keeping the name; at least that demonstrates a level of commitment to the idea/concept/whatever

Reaching level 50 is a completely arbitrary distinction and has no correlation with commitment to a character. I leveled multiple characters to 50 in less than fifteen minutes back on live but I can guarantee you I had zero attachment to any of those characters. Meanwhile, I have characters on Homecoming that haven't reached 50 despite me playing them routinely since 2019 that I'm probably more attached to now.

[eiynp]

I mean if you're playing them regularly they're not gonna run afoul of any name policy anyway

[macskull]

3 minutes ago, eiynp said:

I mean if you're playing them regularly they're not gonna run afoul of any name policy anyway

Correct - until a situation arises where I'm unable to play for a while, at which point I have to hope my character names haven't been taken by someone else when I come back. For some of those characters, that could be as little as 90 days, and I have absolutely been absent from the game for longer than that in the past few years through no fault of my own.

[biostem]

I use dictionary.com/thesaurus.com and rhymezone.com to aid in coming up with new & original names...

[OmegaOne]

Short of finding a way to get rid of the whole unique name thing, I don't see any good way out of this. It was a short-sighted design flaw that still haunts us from the very birth of the game and I don't think there is a simple or easy way to change it (if possible at all).

 

In any case, people who have 100 level 50s will still be sitting on those names years from now (even if they abandon their account) and the time-release name solution they came up with should have been turned on from the get-go (but even that has limited usefulness).  Maybe if they extend the name-release to level 50's as well?

 

Apart from software changes, you could try your luck on another shard or as others have suggested, try to "be more creative".

[biostem]

9 minutes ago, OmegaOne said:

Short of finding a way to get rid of the whole unique name thing, I don't see any good way out of this. It was a short-sighted design flaw that still haunts us from the very birth of the game and I don't think there is a simple or easy way to change it (if possible at all).

With basically unlimited renames, there is nothing stopping you from just creating a character, naming them whatever, then simply renaming them later on down the line when you come up with something better.  I am far from the most creative person, but with all the resources available online, there is no excuse for someone not being able to come up with something close to the name they originally wanted, short of stubbornness...