Character Name Conficts

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Ozgwald wrote:

How many 3 letter names are available?

Cat, Jon, Rob....
Hag, XXX, QRW....

If you can't see the difference between MarkOzgwald and Mark Ozgwald or far that matter just Mark... well how insightful of you!

What everyone tried to explain is that with the suggested idea, you wouldn't be able to be simply Mark anymore. You could be M.ark, Ma.rk or Mar.k (or with whatever accountname/charname separator you want to use)

But guess what? You can already be called M_ark, Ma_rk or Mar_ and you still can simply be Mark if the name is still availaible.

And no matter the system, only one player will be able to get the same account+char name combo (or firs+last name combo) since the complete name has to be a unique identifier, no matter what.

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f0xx wrote:

Naming not a problem? We playing the same game?

This is the first game that I get so many "name is already taken" replies :(

I've only had one name taken, Mr. Plow. All others have been free.

Unique might have been the wrong word, but hey not native English. What I meant and that is why I took the random numbers example, is that there would be less variation. Anyways what mostly is the issue is the immersion or relation to conventional naming as we've all grown up with. Simply adding a "space" option instead of "_" would already help.

This game is rather void of any real role-playing such as MMORPG's see, which these days do pay attention to naming due to large role-playing communities. I still can see why people would want to play the game as Mark though or John and the annoyance to go around the system to create such names or come up with something else.

If we are to be just the "exile" as the game world treats you I would strip the naming convention of characters completely and everyone is the exile, with just their account name making many exile characters. Since we like to organize these characters we give them a name and we're back at the current system. It would work maybe if it weren't for the chat being linked to the character name... enfin this is all about the part of crowd wanting game immersion and easier ways to make names and I definitely support a better system, if only to never see: name is in use, ever again.

I find it funny that many seem to be fine by the system while those are the people that use unconventional naming systems. They probably write in l33t sp34k daily such as sl4yer (not the player above me, well maybe he/she does, but taking it as an example). Such names are not acceptable to many and I can understand their feeling. It really is not so f***ing hard to understand the point made by these people and how many of the suggestions made would solve the problem, while not being a bother to anyone, but the development team.

They are free to say they don't see this a priority and wish to spend no time on it for the foreseeable future, but please stop saying I have no issues when you (HAVE) to call your characters:

Mr_Bloody_W4nker

Using symbols, numbers or combining multiple names without a "space" is not conventional. If it does not matter because you are just an "exile" than the game world seems to fail to portray this image of you being a "John Doe." Let's party up with these other 5 exiles. "Hey exile how are you doing?" "Which exile are you asking, could you point your finger?" "I meant g4zallionb33rs." Which is another issue all together.

To devs

I can't for the life of me think of a reason this shouldn't be implemented. After all, your livelihood depends on as little people as possible having some kind of a bone to pick with the game. As far as I can see this wouldn't change the gameplay in any way nor degrade user experience for those not bothered by it.

People want their toon to be named Drizzt like a zillion of other people online?
Fine, let them.

People rave for optional floating damage text?
Great, put it in, asap.

If it doesn't hurt the game experience for those that have no qualms with the game there's absolutely no reason not to implement it in some way.
And don't tell me it can't be done, because it can and i sincerely doubt it's a load of trouble.

And the 'exile' argument is getting a bit stale. Just picture yourself going to the stockade at Lioneye's Watch and knocking on it with your battered shield, all drenched and bloody after barely escaping from a horrible fate of being raped then murdered (not necessarily in that order) by Hillock. They ask: 'Who's there?' You answer: 'Bob' and they reply: 'Umm, we already got a Bob here, pick yourself another name or stay out'.

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raics wrote:

As far as I can see this wouldn't change the gameplay in any way nor degrade user experience for those not bothered by it.

Yes it definitely would.
I could no longer whisper players using their character names.
Other people wouldn't be able to whisper me by my character name.
I can't even begin to count the number of times I've contacted people by remembering their character name (and been contacted in that manner).
This suggestion would send the social aspect of the game down the shithole for no good reason.

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Mark_GGG wrote:

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Blue_Phoenix wrote:

The "JimIsCool" or "456" is NOT part of the character name. It is an extra identifier in addition to the character name. Both characters are named "Superman".

It is part of the character name, for all practical purposes. The character name, pretty much by definition, is what identifies the character, and that prefixed part is required to do that. It's an additional part of the character name which happens not to be displayed under certain circumstances. Just as in informal settings you probably call your friends only by their first names, rather than using their full names - that doesn't mean their middle/last names aren't part of their name, only that their sometimes omitted. And this suggestions is effectively forcing all characters to have specific last-name-equivalents based on account, removing the ability for anyone to appear as just 'superman' in chat.

And given that, it seems even more arbitrarily restrictive to limit that 'sometimes-hidden' part of the name to only being numbers, or the account name. Surely it would be much better to say something like: "character names may optionally include one (and only one) colon (:). If present, the part of the name preceding and including the colon is omitted on the character select screen and character screen"

Not that I have any idea how viable that is to implement, but if you're actually pushing for these suggestions, wouldn't it at least be better to let people chose the 'family name' of the character if they want one rather than forcing everyone to use a specific one based on account?

I'm still not personally convinced I see this as particularly useful, as if it's really only applying to things like the character screen and character select on login, which seems to be the implication, then isn't it simple enough to mentally remove the additional part if you put on on your name under the current system? I recgonise my posts as being from me due to the "Mark" part*, the _GGG is fairly irrelevant.

It's entirely true that the suggested solution makes it harder to communicate with each other, but it lets you have your character be called whatever you want (Sans control over the prefixed numbers).

Guild Wars 2 iirc always displays the number generated for your account alongside your character name and anyone whispering you needs to include it.

The social system is a whole other issue and for that there are other topics that address the limitations present in this game. I do see how this change doesn't work together with what we have now, but don't tell me you are able to remember names such radiusxXXxxxXX etc. It is not like the naming system and social system are tuned in on one another, it works, but not even efficiently at that?

There are numerous systems such as:

Last played (partied) with
Last traded (could also easily be partied) with

All these people would be shared in either the special bars or your friends list. This is the system used by battle.net and other games/ systems. Also general game "platforms/systems" such as Origin and Steam make use of this. Than there are numerous options unavailable such as friend/ clan/ guild chat a clan or guild system and so on... in world of tanks you do have a played games list to contact people from and which you could view and get to create your own chat channel and/or having a channel for your clan.

There's been demand for account display rather than name display for quite some time too, too often people have to scroll their lengthy social friends list to match name with account.

Anyways the social system discussion should be held elsewhere acknowledge that it limits influence changes here, but than don't say the naming system, with an improved social system (basically the modern system(s) you see in most games) would not be better?

I'm not here to argue technical limitations or how much development time should be spend. This issue wouldn't be high on my list of things to solve I would prioritize other issues first, that doesn't mean that the current naming system is somewhat meh and that suggested changes/ options sound a lot better to me.

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taekvideo wrote:

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raics wrote:

As far as I can see this wouldn't change the gameplay in any way nor degrade user experience for those not bothered by it.

Yes it definitely would.
I could no longer whisper players using their character names.
Other people wouldn't be able to whisper me by my character name.
I can't even begin to count the number of times I've contacted people by remembering their character name (and been contacted in that manner).
This suggestion would send the social aspect of the game down the shithole for no good reason.

And a popup with a list of currently online people using that name would be hard to implement? You'd probably remember their account name when you see it. And why for the love of god aren't account names used in chat in the first place, the only way of knowing that's the same guy you talked with a second ago but with a different character is having him in your friend list. Using character names is valid in games that take a long time to reach endgame so people typically have one character they play most of the time with, maybe two. Here, however, it isn't rare for people to have more than 10 active characters they play or trade with so using character names just isn't convenient.

There are a number of things that could be implemented to vastly improve social acpect, like personal chat history, ignore list and stuff, it's pretty rudimentary now so there's practically nothing there to ruin. I understand it not being on a shortlist but, you know what they say, devil lurks in details, eh?

weather its a fixed familiyname or a account number - both would be ok imo - in my opinion it would make chat/whipser easier - couse if we have one unique identifier per account it would be rather easily to allow whispers to an account instead to a character.

e.g.:
in case of a relog into another char - maybe after a dc or similar
currently if you don't know the current char-name someone is logged in you can't msg him (unless you got him on your friendslist)

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Ph33lon wrote:

weather its a fixed familiyname or a account number - both would be ok imo - in my opinion it would make chat/whipser easier - couse if we have one unique identifier per account it would be rather easily to allow whispers to an account instead to a character.

e.g.:
in case of a relog into another char - maybe after a dc or similar
currently if you don't know the current char-name someone is logged in you can't msg him (unless you got him on your friendslist)

If you message one of their other characters it still goes through to whatever character they're on.