Suggestions for new character naming

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Adreni wrote:

Again, this whole thing is ridiculous. Just go with SPACED names and that's all we really need. Then we can mix and match multi-piece names like people do in real life. My Witch is named Savri Camille. Except I had to fuse the damn thing into one word...

Oh right, I COULD use an underscore. But this is an RPG. A ROLE PLAYING GAME. I want my role play character's name to be a name, not a user ID.

Let me give you an example of my way of thinking, please. I'm a big fan of DC Comics, and I love the new Arrow tv-series. When I wanted to create a ranger, I wanted to use a real name, and not one I had made up. So...

Naturally, the first choice would be Green Arrow, but that's obviously taken. So is Arrow, Dark Arrow, Red Arrow and a bunch of other color variation. I didn't even bother to test. Oliver Queen, then? Nope, too obvious. Oliver? Nah, even worse. Same with Ollie, or Ollie Queen. It's all too obviously taken, so I didn't even bother try.

What I did try was thinking about Arrow. In that series, Oliver has a younger sister called Thea, and he keeps calling her Speedy. As you might know, Green Arrow has a sidekick in the comics called Speedy. So a female ranger called Speedy? Wouldn't work. But Thea? Now that's a different matter. Just calling her Thea wouldn't work, as it's too obvious. But TheaQueen? Yep, that worked. ;) (and yes, you can write capital letters like that. No need for a space.)

The point is you can't pick the most obvious names and hope they are avaliable. You need to think a bit outside the box. Calling yourself Batman and hoping it'll work is just silly. Same with Bruce Wayne. But what about Terry McGinnis? He's been Batman too, you know. And I doubt it's likely that name's taken already. :) (even if it is, I hope you see my point.) There's been three or four Batmen and three or four Robin's, so why not base your name on one of the other, lesser known Batman and Robin's?

I know you need to think outside the box... and I know you can capitalize, but it looks like hell. It looks like a username.

Usually I just throw syllables together until they sound good... like how most people seem to make up fantasy names. >.> ...Taken. Taken. Taken. Ugh...

No reason to NOT use spaces. No GOOD reason that I see.

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ExileDude wrote:

Funny thing is I've played tons of MMORGPs that uses the exact same naming policy as PoE, including testing World of Warcraft just a few weeks ago. And know what? I have never, ever had a problem finding a unique name. Not once. So either I'm a genius, or you're making a huge deal out of a non-existing problem. Your call.

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TheSkyReaper wrote:

... just because a system has been used for years doesn't mean it'll keep working. The reason this system is flawed is BECAUSE the game is having such success. ...the online gaming community is still expanding in general...

Sorry, still a free country where I live.

Oh, and WoW has a RNG, as do many other MMORPGs. And please stop acting as if you were the only one playing these games.

Yup, free country. One thing you're forgetting though is that one person's freedom ends where the next's begins. Otherwise you step out of freedom and enter anarchy. The game may have been in development for 6 years, but that doesn't mean they didn't overlook a few things, or prioritised a few things over others. I actually make a living testing games for companies. I know what's implied. This would probably be classified as a class C issue, as in it doesn't hamper game progression and is not always encountered. This issue may very well be bumped to class B, as in regularly encountered issue if things keep up as they are.

I don't know if you've noticed, but there were a few other people here who have admited to come by this problem, and I'm sure there are many more.

You know, I have no problem with you having a difrent opinion. One of my best strengths is to agree to disagree. The reason I'm coming down on you so hard is because you have been condescending since your first post. Maybe if you stopped acting as if your fragile little words are law, I could respect you.

In life, there is only one certainty. The fact that it eventually ends. You seriously need to re-evaluate your "facts".

Oh boy, we have a flame war going. Fighting urge to call people out... Ok.

I had to come up with about 4 names for my first character so I'm with the original poster on this one.

I can think of two scenarios that can be compared to this:
1. WoW - Character names had to be unique
2. Diablo 1/2/3 - Player account names/tags were unique, character names were not

Scenario 1 worked better in the game listed above because they had over 100 US servers! Was your name taken on Darkspear? Try Stormreaver. Taken there too? Try Forgotten Coast. If you were tied to a server due to friends or a guild or because you wanted to join "The best Raid/PvP server", THEN you have to worry about naming conflicts.

Scenario 2 would be more fitting for this game probably because, like everyone's favorite game Diablo 3 (heh), we all share one national server rather than 100 servers. If you have 5,000,000 people (reach for the stars!) to fight over names with, it's going to get tough. Not to mention, this is only the first week of beta! It was only open beta for 2 days and I already had problems with name conflicts? Imagine in 6 months from now, it'll be a mess.

But don't worry guys, I've already reserved Æöñìcús and Döóöòööôöm in case they're taken.

Actually, this raises an interesting point. Maybe this will only be an issue until there are more separate servers running. But should/will that be the case?

Oh, and don't worry too much about that flame war. If my last post didn't solve anything and he keeps on badgering me "because it's totally personal. XD" I'll get a mod in on this and get him "and possibly me" banned temporarilly/permanently. :p

Well servers cost money to run: Bandwidth, electricity, data center space (probably). As a Free to Play game, money will likely be an issue at first. Long term, there may be more servers if the income provides for it (it's easy to have 100 servers when you make $15 each month from 1million+ people).

I think the real issue here is that there may need to be a pretty large overhaul to add a 3rd level of naming.

We currently have 2 levels in-game: sign-in email address, character name
We would need 3 levels for non-unique names: sign-in email address, account name, character name

I think we already have these 3 levels on the website, since you don't see my e-mail address on the right but you do see a tag I created. It just doesn't exist in the actual game...yet.

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TheSkyReaper wrote:

If the reason for the option of binding character names to the account name is not a satisfactory solution due to security reasons, then worst off just have players chose an aditional name for their account. A log-in name, an account name visible to everyone and then the character names. It would be just as secure as the current format this way.

This really should be adressed soon. Open beta's hardly begun and already there are severe problems in finding a name that wasn't picked.

One will know another person's account name if you add him/her as friend, so it's not that secretive anyway.

But I agree to the OP, having the account name as a surname would solve the problem.

Really Sohchai? Didn't know that. Well, if that's the case, then to hell with having a third name. It won't be so bad to make that type of change. Well, not AS bad anyway.

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MoonYu wrote:

One the first try,
Damn_Dirty_Ape
Exiled_For_bitchiness
Secret_Agentman
Lord_Fancypants (deleted)
Sans_Pants


See a pattern? Use the underline and imagination. Want Thor? Its taken. Try Thor_Almighty. Or how about Thor_Thundergod? Get weird, Thor_Monkeybutter.

So far the argument for is often 'I have no imagination.' Not a great argument.

Those names all come into the "shoppingcart335" category imo. I mean, if you like that type of name, more power to you. However there are many of us who actually like having something that resembles a name. Not a gag or serial number.

Slapping words together at random isn't originality, it's the easy way out.
And even if it was a "I have no immagination" excuse that kept us from finding available names, why should people be penalised for it? Like I said way back, finding a name in a game shouldn't be a chore that takes more then 30 seconds unless you really want to.

Okay, I just took two minutes and made three characters:

Trund
Junera
Brunthar

These are non-goof, fantasy adequate names that took merely seconds to create.

And I approve of the single name system, because a) it ensures individuality and variation, b) it prevents confusion and false pretense and c) it is no fun to see 500 "Kyle"s running around, everyone calling themselves "Kripp" or seeing your favorite name tagged onto every second character.

Also, under scores are usable in names, which makes it even easier. I have a ranger called Lia_Farr, for example.

So for me: I personally do not need it, but there are always ways to circumvent naming restrictions. For example, you could always make your own tag before or after each character name to distinguish them. (TSR_Kyle, KyleTSR or Kyle_TSR)

- Cazy