Character names being not globally unique

I would love to see character names not being globally unique. I've noticed that even in the beta I can have trouble finding a name that I like for my characters because somebody else has already taken them. Somebody who, like me, will potentially never play anything other than "single player" or with 2-3 friends and that I'll probably never interact with. The restriction feels... a bit unnecessary. And a bit archaic, to be honest.

What would be the problem with ever seeing two characters with the same name in the game?

Other games have solved this by adding the player's gamer tag or nickname as a "root" or "surname" to the character name (where needed), making any name unique. You could then say in those cases that the name becomes unique in the context of that player's characters - he can't name two characters the same thing, but he could then have a witch joining the ranks of other witches named "Glasscannon" if he'd so desire.

Please consider another solution to the unique names. Coming in as a new player, or creating a new character a few months into the game, just to be greeted with a barrage of "name is already taken"... is quite disheartening. It also just results in people making names like "Glässcännön" and "GIasscannòn" and similar atrocities ;)

Having "first dibs" on character names just because I was early in is a privilege I can do without :)



I did some searching and beta manifesto snooping and hope I didn't miss a glaringly similar suggestion. If so, I hope you can bear with me since this is my first thread ;)

Thumbs up for this idea, it gets tiresome trying to find a suitable name without seeing the "already in use".

Yay.

Personally, I feel like I accomplished something when I get a cool name. If names are not unique, I'll probably lose out in that feeling. =\

Also, I do friend some strangers, and I end up remembering their character name. If that player's character's name is Bob_The_Barbarian, and there are 50 Bob_The_Barbarian's online, then I'll never know if the BTB I'm talking to right now is the guy I befriended. What if I have 4 friends who use Bob_The_Barbarian as their name? It'll be impossible to track. =/

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ac429 wrote:

Personally, I feel like I accomplished something when I get a cool name. If names are not unique, I'll probably lose out in that feeling. =\

Also, I do friend some strangers, and I end up remembering their character name. If that player's character's name is Bob_The_Barbarian, and there are 50 Bob_The_Barbarian's online, then I'll never know if the BTB I'm talking to right now is the guy I befriended. What if I have 4 friends who use Bob_The_Barbarian as their name? It'll be impossible to track. =/

It won't really be a problem if the identifier you use to know each other as "friends" in the game are some sort of gamer nickname instead of the character name.

The character name would, of course, become more secondary but I believe it'd be worth it. You can name your character (almost) whatever you want, and the only unique name you'll have to come up with is your global gamer nickname (and we've already got one of those).

We'd get around the problem of people creating lots of characters just for the purpose of hoarding names. Considering you can create a few slots per account, and considering creating accounts is free and characters aren't deleted even if the player moves on (or never really plays at all), you'd get a whole mass of names just sitting in dead accounts.

No, not worth it IMHO just for the sake of feeling a little bit unique when it comes to character name. It simmers down to pure luck if you can come up with a name you can actually take and that doesn't look hòrribIé, if you see what I mean ;)

There are plenty of other opportunities in this game to be and feel unique.

Ya I agree, we should have a global profile name, gamer tag, or whatever they want to call it that is unique. That way we can still have the character names we want. I want people to know me by my profile name anyway because I like to make a lot of alts. Its simper to remember one global name then 20 character names.

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Artophwar wrote:

Ya I agree, we should have a global profile name, gamer tag, or whatever they want to call it that is unique. That way we can still have the character names we want. I want people to know me by my profile name anyway because I like to make a lot of alts. Its simper to remember one global name then 20 character names.

This! I tend to forget what the characters of friends are called now and then and creating a new "alt" just to have to add all my friends characters as buddies again is pretty cumbersome.

I'm not sure how it works in PoE though. Some games (I think) have only character names, but adding a character means you actually add the player as a buddy, but the buddy is represented by whatever character he's logged in with. That can get very confusing if he changes characters a lot.

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mercetron wrote:

We'd get around the problem of people creating lots of characters just for the purpose of hoarding names. Considering you can create a few slots per account, and considering creating accounts is free and characters aren't deleted even if the player moves on (or never really plays at all), you'd get a whole mass of names just sitting in dead accounts.

No, not worth it IMHO just for the sake of feeling a little bit unique when it comes to character name. It simmers down to pure luck if you can come up with a name you can actually take and that doesn't look hòrribIé, if you see what I mean ;)

Possible solution:

A character (not account) not accessed in 120 days has their name removed. On the character list, you would show up as unnamed_character. Upon selecting that character to play, you are forced to choose a new name.

Hm, hm, hm. I hear ya. It just feels a tiny bit more like a workaround to the problem instead of just making it a non-problem from the start.

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Artophwar wrote:

Ya I agree, we should have a global profile name, gamer tag, or whatever they want to call it that is unique. That way we can still have the character names we want. I want people to know me by my profile name anyway because I like to make a lot of alts. Its simper to remember one global name then 20 character names.

Isn't this in the game already? because my friends are listed in the friend list with their account name and their character name in a list below.