[Other] Inactive Names

[AmsterdamHeavy]

So, what started out as an entitled whine in General Chat actually ended up turning into a decent idea thread so I decided to bring it here as a suggestion.

Problem: With 10 or 12 million players the available naming pool for characters is growing thin. There are people with "prime" names that havent logged in since 2009, and some that have never played a game.

Suggestion: Free up unused and names and make them available again.

Assumption: No characters or accounts will be deleted by EAsy

How?: For any character that has been inactive for 2 years, their names can potentially be added back into the available name pool. The inactive user doesnt actually lose the name unless they have not logged in with their account for 2 years AND someone else makes a character and tries to use that name OR someone buys a name change token and tries to use an inactive name. If the name is "claimed" by the new character, the inactive character loses the name and is provided a name change token for free. If they ever log in to the game again, they will be informed that they have lost that name due to inactivity and prompted to rename their character. This could generate income by people by name change tokens to claim inactive names. *Need some ideas here on how this can be done well. People wont spend $$ if they dont know for sure they can claim the name. Perhaps the best way to handle that would be to make the player check the availability of the new name BEFORE they pay for the name change

Safeguard for Inactive Players: Inactive players will receive emails at T-30, T-14, T-7 and T-1 days as they approach the 2 year inactive anniversary. So, a month, 2 weeks, a week, and last warning the day before. This will give them an opportunity to log in and thus restart the timer. A good side effect of this would be to potentially allow EAsy to make more money off of name changes and also to bring back players to the game.


(this is not purely my own idea, I have played another game that handles the name pool this way. In that game a name change costs $10)


Conclusion: This idea will make a lot of people happy because it can be quite frustrating to sit there for 20 minutes after rolling a new character trying to find a name you like that hasnt been used already. (though I havent actually had this problem myself) This idea should also cut down on characters named "ligyfyufufkf" and "aassddffrreeww" and things like that.

I feel that this suggestion is quite fair to all involved and as a side effect, could potentially bring people back to the game. "Oh, BFH? I forgot all about that game. I dont want to lose my names *NOSTALGIA*. Let me log in and see whats going on with that game after all of this time"


Suggestions to improve this idea and /signs are welcome.

[Charlie.Bucket]

Thanks for posting this here, /sign

[Tytonidae]

/sign, awesome

[FTOOB2]

/sign pretty cool idea

[Brian4t8]

I would absolutely agree to this. /Sign.

Perhaps an addition that may be beneficial would be an advance-placement button which players can select if they're quitting the game; this adds their names directly to the name-pool and issues them a generic user-name like "User######-1-10" if people choose this option. They will then have to pay to get a unique name again if they choose to get back into the game. Players are given something on the order of 30 days to reverse this change if they volunteer for it, after which time, it is permanent until paying to change it.

In all: /Sign

[Atomkick]

/sign

[Spek.]

/sign.

[jokerrrrrrrrrr]

/sign

~Ady

[PownYourFace]

/sign

[JesusOfSuburbia?]

/sign

[AAnnoo]

Nice Idea!
Also, I´ve noticed that you´re no longer able to use special symbols like " " (<-- Spacebar ) and "|"
Some closed beta players used " " (<-- Spacebar) in their name.
So, EA made many names not being taken...for example "|Derp Derpo|" or something like that.
There are less options to choose from.

/sign.

[EddyKawabata]

/sign. X100 Nicely laid out. Me wants the "Mr.E" name, a stupid freeloader that hasn't even played on the hero.

[Captian_kotov3]

/sign

for the best future

[A5TR0NAUT]

/sign

[[|=.MA$TER-P.=|]]

/Sign.

[FibenBolger]

/sign

Not that I have a problem with naming, it's just disappointing to come up with a semi-obscure name only to find out some other mook took it and used it on a throwaway account.

I only see one problem but it's a big one: How am I going to know when these newly released names become available? My nightmare scenario would to finally able to use Kilgore Trout, Snake Pliskin or Chuck Finley (3 years, never played!) only to find out some other newb snagged it before me and tied it up for two more freakin' years.

[AmsterdamHeavy]

(04-08-2012 03:10 PM)FibenBolger Wrote:  /sign

Not that I have a problem with naming, it's just disappointing to come up with a semi-obscure name only to find out some other mook took it and used it on a throwaway account.

I only see one problem but it's a big one: How am I going to know when these newly released names become available? My nightmare scenario would to finally able to use Kilgore Trout, Snake Pliskin or Chuck Finley (3 years, never played!) only to find out some other newb snagged it before me and tied it up for two more freakin' years.

The game where I got this suggestion from, City of Heroes, doesnt have any methodology for that. Basically, its up to you and constant vigilence to check if a name is available. basically what youd do is roll a new character, and then try to name it. If the name was available, you save the character, OR buy a rename token for an existing character, and then delete the one you just created and then claim the name with the token.

Name squatting is always a problem in games with very large membership populations. Ina FREE game its going to be even worse.

So ya, I dont have any ideas on how to address this directly, or that it even needs a way. Any way to look up names is just going to cause frustration in the race to claim the name, plus any ability to do so may encourage a different group of people to name squat. SOmeone could just pay attention to popular names and make it a past time to snatch them up, which really becomes a problem when you can have an unlimited number of accounts.

[Charlie.Bucket]

Bump

This needs more attention D:

[Failorz]

/sign.

Extra: players who even didn't played (or maybe 15 minutes -,-), and registered 6+ months ago, why not delete those accounts? Also gives new usernames and a clean database?

[SixKnight]

/sign