Guild Wars 2

Behellagh.1468:

It’ll never happen. Since you can leave for years and return, they wouldn’t want to do anything that would discourage a returning player to leave, like forcing them to rename their characters.

I suggest you become more creative in your naming because if you are running into a problem naming, it’s because you aren’t unique in going for the low hanging fruit of punny names or anime/TV/movie/book character “homage”. There are way too many Drizzts in too many fantasy MMOs already. Try harder.

^
This. +1

I’m not gonna lie, most of my toons are named after existing characters, but that’s because I’m uncreative with naming. Luckily I have a very unorthodox taste in games, music and books so most of my toons are named after lesser-known characters from lesser-known IPs such as my guardian named Sebastian Lacroix, named after Sebastian Lacroix from the RPG named Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodlines.

Cryolyptic.2738:

JustTrogdor.7892:

What happens to say people that play GW2 and are in the military. Say they have to deploy of 18 months or longer? Is it fair they come back and find their names gone? I don’t think so. What happens if someone doesn’t have the means to play for an extended period of time due to illness or other circumstances? Is it fair for them to lose their names? I think not.

It is fair. They chose to join the military, and they know as a consequence they may be gone for 18 months. That is no basis for them to be able to hang onto a name that is not in use for over a year and a half. Not to mention, I know plenty of people in the military who still game. They’re not in constant warfare 24/7, simply because they are deployed.

And if you’re gone for over 2 year due to an illness, I think you have bigger things to worry about than losing your name in an online game.

People pay for the game and their account.
If they choose to not use it as often as you like, that’s their right.

The fact that you don’t get to pick the name you want because you jumped on it too late is your problem, not theirs and shifting the blame on people that were fast enough is ridiculous.

Other people don’t deserve to be inconvenienced just because you’re unable to come up with a name.

Cryolyptic.2738:

JustTrogdor.7892:

What happens to say people that play GW2 and are in the military. Say they have to deploy of 18 months or longer? Is it fair they come back and find their names gone? I don’t think so. What happens if someone doesn’t have the means to play for an extended period of time due to illness or other circumstances? Is it fair for them to lose their names? I think not.

It is fair. They chose to join the military, and they know as a consequence they may be gone for 18 months.

How about you go fight for your own freedom then..thats fair right?

I honestly don’t see a reason people shoul lose the names of a lvl 80 character.
No matter the time spent away.

I say, if you have a character below lvl 10 that has been inactive for 3 plus months.
Sure, lose the name.
If you have been inactive but you have 4 lvl 80’s. No.
No reason for you to be forced to rename a character you spent time/gold leveling.
Like others have said.
Get creative.

Wethospu.6437:

Inactive names could be temporarily freed. If that account became active again you would lose your name and be forced to rename.

Nope. Names are first come, first serve, and Arenanet is gracious enough to allow for accent marks, umlats, and other non standard english characters for naming, and allows for first and last names (or even first, middle, last if you want)

I’d be okay with permenantly banned accounts having their names up for grabs again, but otherwise, get creative. An account in good standing losing their names because you can’t get creative is weak.

People go on breaks, it may be a several month break, but they come back and when they come back, they want their characters as they left them. A good way to make sure that players never return is to make them lose their characters or character names after going away for awhile. Now they got nothing to come back to.

Kulvar.1239:

Human/Norn => Use a first and last name (Eldric Cooper / Ulvric Johansson)
Charr => Use a first and warband name (Rawl Dustblade)
Asura => Use a title and a first name (Magicist Friff)
Sylvari => You’re kittened!

It’s not an issue at all.

I haven’t had any problems at all, not even for Sylvari.

I do stick with lore conform names (I don’t like clever puns" or referencing other people’s material for character names). My Asura has a title, although I might just as well have doubled some consonant in her name.

If you want to give your character the same name you have used in a different game before and it’s taken, that sucks, but for humans (for instance) you can go with a middle initial and that will fix that problem for now.

I got to use all the names I wanted. I just gave everyone a surname, since the game allows for spaces and multiple caps. I rather like their system because of that.

I think the OP has been answered several times already including links that show Anet’s policy on not freeing up names on dormant accounts. Therefore I feel this thread has run its course. No need to beat up on the OP anymore.

I can not support this idea.

Devildoc.6721:

Wethospu.6437:

Inactive names could be temporarily freed. If that account became active again you would lose your name and be forced to rename.

Nope. Names are first come, first serve, and Arenanet is gracious enough to allow for accent marks, umlats, and other non standard english characters for naming, and allows for first and last names (or even first, middle, last if you want)

I’d be okay with permenantly banned accounts having their names up for grabs again, but otherwise, get creative. An account in good standing losing their names because you can’t get creative is weak.

People go on breaks, it may be a several month break, but they come back and when they come back, they want their characters as they left them. A good way to make sure that players never return is to make them lose their characters or character names after going away for awhile. Now they got nothing to come back to.

That’s why I said “temporarily” and not “permanently”. I know my post wasn’t very clear but point is that if anyone takes your name you will get it back when you start playing again.

Wethospu.6437:

Devildoc.6721:

Wethospu.6437:

Inactive names could be temporarily freed. If that account became active again you would lose your name and be forced to rename.

Nope. Names are first come, first serve, and Arenanet is gracious enough to allow for accent marks, umlats, and other non standard english characters for naming, and allows for first and last names (or even first, middle, last if you want)

I’d be okay with permenantly banned accounts having their names up for grabs again, but otherwise, get creative. An account in good standing losing their names because you can’t get creative is weak.

People go on breaks, it may be a several month break, but they come back and when they come back, they want their characters as they left them. A good way to make sure that players never return is to make them lose their characters or character names after going away for awhile. Now they got nothing to come back to.

That’s why I said “temporarily” and not “permanently”. I know my post wasn’t very clear but point is that if anyone takes your name you will get it back when you start playing again.

And then you would have a bunch of players QQing all over the place that their name was taken away from them because “Bob Warrior” logged back in. “It isn’t fair because I have been playing that character for 500 hours and now my name is gone!”

There is no way that this would work without angering a bunch of people. Under your idea what is Anet supposed to do? “You selected a name taken by an inactive player. It may be temporary and you may lose your name when that player returns to the game. You will then have to pick a new name.” I don’t see that happening and I don’t see Anet dedicating resources to support such an idea. Plus define inactive player, 3 months, 6 months, 12 months, 18 months?

Lastly, Anet has made their stance clear on names for “inactive” accounts and accounts that have been banned. They will not release those names under any circumstances.