During my time in Tyria, I’ve noticed that the various NPCs you talk to both in the personal story and in the world call you by your full name. For instance, my character’s name is ‘Gnarl Soothtail’, and after I finish a karma quest, the grateful NPC will say something along the lines of “Thank you, Gnarl Soothtail. Your actions have helped us greatly. We have some supplies you might be able to use”, etc.
To me, this seems a little too formal for someone whose home you have just saved, or for one of the mentors who has spent a lot of time with your character. My suggestion is to add a nickname option during character creation – a one-word name for NPC’s which are highly thankful to you or are part of your personal story to use, that they may speak more personally to you. To avoid abuse of the system, perhaps it could be coded so that it only accept the words of your full name. Mine would definitely be ‘Gnarl’, because that name sounds really cool.
I’m not a technical mind, so I’d have no idea how to implement it onto characters that already exist within the game, but I’m sure the smart people at ArenaNet could figure it out. This would be a fairly subtle way to enhance the immersion of the game, and is by no means a big, pressing issue – just something to think about in the future.
Thanks for reading!
Though the only really jarring moment in that regard for me has been (SPOILER) finding gravestones of people that couldn’t possibly know my current name and having that entire name engraved in the stone. “We wish you well, Donari Mal Di Bette” just doesn’t work. Better in that case just to have “our (male/female descriptor).”