Guild Wars 2

xuse.6817:

Borsook says:

“if your name is so original why do you mind if your char is renamed? nobody will take it so you can claim it back, since it’s original right?”
wtf are you afraid of then
oh wait
it’s just people who started when game opened, took all the good names
and now sit on them thinking it’s ok

Ironically, Toxic and I do the same thing… take names and sit on them even if we have no intention to play kek

I make new characters regularly and have never had any issue making single word names or double word names. It’s not that hard.

Also, ye i could come up with new names for my characters but the name is as essential a part of the character as his/her looks. It makes a character whole, and i’m not okay with part of my character being taken away just because someone can’t think of an original name. I never had any issues creating names, maybe you just need to step up your naming game instead of wanting others to be punished for your unoriginality.

A low character limit?!
3-19 characters, you can add spaces, and accented letters… We don’t really need to see “Lord I Have a Long Name Because I Want To See If Anyone Will Type it Out”

Nobody should take another players name period. Regaurdless of how often they log in.

You wouldn’t be punished for originality. If you have not logged in for 2 entire years straight you are most definitely not entitled to sit on 3, 4, or 5 letter unaccented names especially if you are too lazy to spend one second to log in once in TWO years.

If you got the name, it’s yours. If you didn’t I suggest you move on and come up with a new name.

You are certainly NOT entitled to take it from another player for any reason.

xuse.6817:

You wouldn’t be punished for originality. If you have not logged in for 2 entire years straight you are most definitely not entitled to sit on 3, 4, or 5 letter unaccented names especially if you are too lazy to spend one second to log in once in TWO years.

Anet have already said otherwise.

xuse.6817:

You wouldn’t be punished for originality. If you have not logged in for 2 entire years straight you are most definitely not entitled to sit on 3, 4, or 5 letter unaccented names especially if you are too lazy to spend one second to log in once in TWO years.

And you are not entitled to take those names because you can’t muster enough creativity to think of something not taken already.

xuse.6817:

You wouldn’t be punished for originality. If you have not logged in for 2 entire years straight you are most definitely not entitled to sit on 3, 4, or 5 letter unaccented names especially if you are too lazy to spend one second to log in once in TWO years.

And you are not entitled to take away their names.

Gw2 is, and will always be, a game where you can get long breaks and come back to find your account intact. Don’t like that? sorry but it’s not gonna change.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

or not that player gave their account to someone else who may or may not play the game before death even if they do.

Isn’t that violating the TOS? :P

uknortherner.2670:

I think the OP and xuse need to stop acting like special snowflakes. You are not entitled to other peoples’ character names because you were three years late to the party or have the imagination of a rock.

Deal with it.

I +1’d this comment so hard my mouse button broke.

Now I need to buy a new mouse.

uknortherner.2670:

xuse.6817:

You wouldn’t be punished for originality. If you have not logged in for 2 entire years straight you are most definitely not entitled to sit on 3, 4, or 5 letter unaccented names especially if you are too lazy to spend one second to log in once in TWO years.

Anet have already said otherwise.

And anet is going to eat those words one day, mark my words, because all the NA/EU servers are using the combined account pool and at least a third of those accounts have probably not logged in two years. I wish I had their data so I could provide inactivity charts.

They weren’t thinking clearly. The mmos that wiped names did so even despite working with a fraction of the account pool per-server, it still needed to be done. It needs to be done here even more (if we go on the amount of servers: 20 times more or more), and the time bomb is ticking.

I can only imagine what horribly overused names they are complaining about being kept from them.

I’ve had little issue naming my characters, though I was a bit silly and gave almost all the humans the same last name. Does wonders for getting the first name I want though.

xuse.6817:

uknortherner.2670:

xuse.6817:

You wouldn’t be punished for originality. If you have not logged in for 2 entire years straight you are most definitely not entitled to sit on 3, 4, or 5 letter unaccented names especially if you are too lazy to spend one second to log in once in TWO years.

Anet have already said otherwise.

And anet is going to eat those words one day, mark my words, because all the NA/EU servers are using the combined account pool and at least a third of those accounts have probably not logged in two years. I wish I had their data so I could provide inactivity charts.

They weren’t thinking clearly. The mmos that wiped names did so even despite working with a fraction of the account pool per-server, it still needed to be done. It needs to be done here even more (if we go on the amount of servers: 20 times more or more), and the time bomb is ticking.

They did just fine with gw1 after 10 years where you could only use 2-worded names, considering you can use 1-worded names in gw2, i’m sure they’ll be fine.

Consider your words marked, now do what EVERY other player does; make a character with a name that’s not already taken and enjoy playing.

Like I said earlier, I made a sylvari with a 6 letter name, no accents, no special characters LAST NIGHT. I see no problem.

I have names that I got when the game released that are great names…exactly what I wanted. The new characters I create…not so much. I have to struggle to find names that “work” for me so I understand the frustration. All that said, I still prefer to have no recycling of names. I would rather have to struggle and work for new ones than to have a system where you are at risk of losing names because of inactivity.

Since the heart of a “play forever” system is data retention, that will not happen because what constitutes a “dead account”.

Learn to be more creative with your names.

Khisanth.2948:

Konig Des Todes.2086:

or not that player gave their account to someone else who may or may not play the game before death even if they do.

Isn’t that violating the TOS? :P

Not really. Account sharing is always looked down upon in mmos for obvious reasons (rmts, power leveling, etc) but most (including ncsoft) will still support a person who admits to sharing – to some degree.
Officially, you may assumed to be an account seller and permbanned, or your support warranty may be void.
L2 had a policy against it, and yet they banned someone who stole from someone’s account they were openly sharing and literally everyone knew about – and returned his stuff anyways.

No, other MMO’s don’t wipe names unless there was already a clause for it in their initial game policy (which means it was in place when the game launched).

What your requesting is pure MMO poison and an epic drama fest that would lead to forum flame riots for years to come.

Suck it up and figure out a name that is not in use.

Miku.6297:

Out of morbid curiosity what names are you guys trying to get?

Sylvari don’t have surnames.. Getting a lore correct name (something Gaelic or Celtic) is really hard for them.

For Norn, Charr or Human it’s much easier.

Elothar.4382:

I have names that I got when the game released that are great names…exactly what I wanted. The new characters I create…not so much. I have to struggle to find names that “work” for me so I understand the frustration. All that said, I still prefer to have no recycling of names. I would rather have to struggle and work for new ones than to have a system where you are at risk of losing names because of inactivity.

I have renamed characters within the last year, and characters that are only a year or so old, and have still gotten the names I want, 2 of which are one word, none accented names for Sylvari.
The whole issue for some people is their own creativity, or lack thereof.

Funnily enough, when GW2 launched, and millions of names were created, millions more were reserved from GW1. And still people managed to not ‘run out of names’.

I make 4 to 10 new characters a week, and rarely use the same name. I hardly ever get the notice ‘That name is in use’, and never at a second attempt.

Surely, you and those of your ilk are intelligent enough to come up with unique character names. Because, heaven forbid… should you ever find yourself ill or incapacitated, and unable or unwilling to log in for some time.

Good luck.

Halan.7931:

Miku.6297:

Out of morbid curiosity what names are you guys trying to get?

Sylvari don’t have surnames.. Getting a lore correct name (something Gaelic or Celtic) is really hard for them.

For Norn, Charr or Human it’s much easier.

Pick a byname. As their population grows and they’re interacting more with the other species, it just makes sense.

Problem solved.

26^6 = 308,915,776

You have over 3 hundred millions names to choose from and yet you can’t come up with one? Urgh. And here is the audacity to force people to change names to play by your rule? ABSURD!

xuse.6817:

uknortherner.2670:

xuse.6817:

You wouldn’t be punished for originality. If you have not logged in for 2 entire years straight you are most definitely not entitled to sit on 3, 4, or 5 letter unaccented names especially if you are too lazy to spend one second to log in once in TWO years.

Anet have already said otherwise.

And anet is going to eat those words one day, mark my words, because all the NA/EU servers are using the combined account pool and at least a third of those accounts have probably not logged in two years. I wish I had their data so I could provide inactivity charts.

They weren’t thinking clearly. The mmos that wiped names did so even despite working with a fraction of the account pool per-server, it still needed to be done. It needs to be done here even more (if we go on the amount of servers: 20 times more or more), and the time bomb is ticking.

No they wont. They didn’t in guild wars and they wont in GW2. Most of my names carried over from Guild Wars. I’ve made countless characters with names in Guild Wars 2 and never had a problem not getting the name I wanted first time.

Now stop with the QQ, it’s not going to change ANets stance on this, and you are not going to convince anyone else otherwise. To be honest, I just think you are trolling now.

Halan.7931:

Miku.6297:

Out of morbid curiosity what names are you guys trying to get?

Sylvari don’t have surnames.. Getting a lore correct name (something Gaelic or Celtic) is really hard for them.

For Norn, Charr or Human it’s much easier.

Scarlet had one.

/thread

Lorewise, many sylvari have surnames of their own choosing. Asura are the ones who very rarely take a surname, though many of them have various titles.

Quarktastic.1027:

Scarlet had one.

/thread

Lorewise, many sylvari have surnames of their own choosing. Asura are the ones who very rarely take a surname, though many of them have various titles.

Her actual name was Ceara. She abandoned that name, though, and called herself Scarlet Briar. Plus, she was crazy pants.

Once again Anet’s official stance on the topic:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/support/Requesting-a-Taken-Name/first#post4248872

Gaile Gray.6029:

We do not take character or display or guild names away from valid accounts. Someone may step away and return to the game later, so the names must stay in place.

It doesn’t seems to have changed since Gaile’s post as seen here in another thread on topic and posted by a Lead Game Master:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Character-Name-Wipes/page/2#post4645082

I don’t really see anymore reason to argue over this as Anet has clearly stated their policy.

xuse.6817:

And what if they’re dead and have been inactive for 3 years?

I have taken seveal accounts worth of names on mmos I have zero intention of playing.

You can’t beat logic, letting dead accounts keep names is pandering to the wrong crowd entirely and makes no sense.

There is little excuse after a year, no excuse after two years of inactivity.
Also, we can’t diversify names much, even accented names are taken.

You’re also forgeting that names are shared by ALL SERVERS including EU, WHICH IS INCREDIBLY BAD. Most mmos, that wipe names, do NOT share names across a population this large… and still wipe names.

Toxicity only uses 3-6 letter names that are not accented.

so you want to take away memorials to people who have died? that’s very rude. as stated before, a gm has stated that no valid name will ever be released back, unless the char is deleted of course, or rename contract.

If you were there for the beginning of the game you have the honor of snagging an interesting name or two. I got the name “Sergeant Grumbles” when the game released but deleted that character and someone else came along and grabbed it at some point in time.

Just try to be original, and don’t get too obsessed with one and only one possible name for a character

I usually think up one name then take some time thinking of a last name or a prefix to suite the name and the character.

No reason to wipe the names just so you can have some boring unoriginal name. Did I cry when I couldn’t name my character Ian Boyd? I should’ve, but I didn’t. It’s okay.

The only name wipe I’ve witnessed was in WoW. When WoD was coming out they announced that inactive accounts would lose their names, which was the first name wipe they did in 10 years that I recall. It was enough to get me to re-up and try out WoD, I admit, as I had no interest in someone taking my names and perhaps acting like a jerk while my friends thought it was me. But if I hadn’t had friends still playing and RPing in WoW I likely wouldn’t have exerted myself.

Anyway that’s a far cry from the yearly wipes the OP posits large MMO’s must do. WoW only allows one word names, too, though they are only unique to servers, not the whole game. And WoW took ten years to clean house!

GW2 is a different ball of wax with a different accessibility model. They simply cannot take names away from people, not even with warning. As I said above they could add in apostrophes, perhaps dashes as well, and bam, many names open up. Yet even under the current system there are still many names available if you are willing to create your own instead of copying some famous media character.

I did a final overseas tour before I retired from the army. I’d have been extremely kittened if my 15 months away from this game resulted in my being penalized because some self important POGUE wanted my stuff.

Sure sucks to come late to the game and not have the imagination to name your toon, but someone beat ya to it. get over it, adapt and overcome, don’t snivel.

Ferguson.2157:

I did a final overseas tour before I retired from the army. I’d have been extremely kittened if my 15 months away from this game resulted in my being penalized because some self important POGUE wanted my stuff.

Sure sucks to come late to the game and not have the imagination to name your toon, but someone beat ya to it. get over it, adapt and overcome, don’t snivel.

Hoorah to that.

You know what? After thinking about it, I’ve come to the conclusion that either xuse has some serious mental issues that need to be looked at, or he’s selling the names on a gray market. I could understand holding onto a few cool names in a game you play actively and using those names for yourself, but he has already admitted that he does the same in games that he doesn’t even play.

As for his arguments:

• The name databases are shared between servers because you can change your server. Imagine changing your server only to find out that your name now has a _1 or -1 or whatever next to it, or being told that you need to change the name of the character before you can play it on the new server.
• Bringing up deceased people as an argument for wiping names is not only insensitive, but impractical as hell. There’s no way to verify it without being a creepy kitten, kind of like what Facebook does.
• Bringing up permabanned people as an argument for wiping names doesn’t make much sense either. The thing most people use to interact with people in the game is their character name, not the account name. Thus, having someone run around with a name that is associated with someone who was permabanned can only end badly. Picture a newbie who ends up with a name that has a notorious rep and now has to plead to support to change it.

And let’s be serious, even within the name space of 3 characters, there’s a total of 15,600 entirely different names, I doubt you either own or have tested each of them. But I suppose names like abc, xyz, etc, qed, omg, lol, wtf, ftw, til, dad, mom… just have more value associated to them than something like qxz or dfg.

Actually, you are all trivializing this a bit much. Its not a critical problem but it is an increasingly annoying one IF you want your name have some relevance or meaning to the character or to just simply look like an actual NAME as opposed to gibberish. The maximum combos numbers people are throwing around are silly: “uomnyuogo” is not a name most people would chose but its probably one of the combos in that total. If you want your name to be quasi-reasonable/sane/recognizable as an actual NAME you’ll find yourself spending an ridiculous amount of time trying variation upon variation upon variation of the name you want without much luck. Been there, done that. Annoying as hell.

In before the names don’t matter crowd: If it doesn’t matter to you do us all a favor the next time you make up a permanent character you want to play . . . roll your face across the keyboard and take that name. The rest of us will take the pronounceable ones that actually look like names.

xuse.6817:

If you have not logged in for 2 entire years straight you are most definitely not entitled to sit on 3, 4, or 5 letter unaccented names

Actually yes we are.

Arrow.4619:

Actually, you are all trivializing this a bit much. Its not a critical problem but it is an increasingly annoying one IF you want your name have some relevance or meaning to the character or to just simply look like an actual NAME as opposed to gibberish. The maximum combos numbers people are throwing around are silly: “uomnyuogo” is not a name most people would chose but its probably one of the combos in that total. If you want your name to be quasi-reasonable/sane/recognizable as an actual NAME you’ll find yourself spending an ridiculous amount of time trying variation upon variation upon variation of the name you want without much luck. Been there, done that. Annoying as hell.

It’s really not all that hard to find a good combo that both fits a system of lore and is available. And if you have trouble, there are the following sites:

http://fantasynamegenerators.com/human_gw_names.php
http://fantasynamegenerators.com/asura_names.php
http://fantasynamegenerators.com/sylvari_names.php
http://fantasynamegenerators.com/norn_names.php
http://fantasynamegenerators.com/charr_names.php

“In before the names don’t matter crowd:”

Well obviously the names we chose DO matter to us and we don’t want to lose them just because we stepped away from the game for a year, or three.

I’ve made a couple of names recently. The first one, I chose a short plant name. It was taken. I changed a couple of letters and had a name that went through. Took only 2 or 3 minutes. My second name, the first choice was short and taken. I added another letter then a lore appropriate second name and then it went through. Maybe 2 minutes max.

Names do matter but I think this has more to do with players naming their character after their favorite anime/manga/cartoon/tv/video game/novel characters, obvious puns or tweaked names from GW lore rather than not being able to create a truly original name sans accent characters.

I don’t know why people are so keen to shoot down the OP and their request. If someone hasn’t bothered to log in for three years, then they aren’t being a benefit to the game you are all playing and sending them a wake up call of “log in or lose your name” may actually get some to resume their activity.

It isn’t the OP demanding to be a “special snowflake”, its the people who bagged a name and then vanished.

As to the commitment to never reset names….I seem to remember a whole lot of other commitments that changed as time passed. Please see “living world”, “no grind” and “no expansion” for details.

chronometria.3708:

As to the commitment to never reset names….I seem to remember a whole lot of other commitments that changed as time passed. Please see “living world”, “no grind” and “no expansion” for details.

Where did they ever say “no expansion ever”? Also, what changed about “living world”? It’s coming back with HoT.

chronometria.3708:

It isn’t the OP demanding to be a “special snowflake”,

When someone’s request boils down to, “I want what they have, take it away from them and give it to me,” then that label is probably accurate.

Remember that this is someone who seems to be requesting that names be taken away from people that he admits to having communicated with and who specifically indicated that they were not interested in giving up their names.

RoseofGilead.8907:

Arrow.4619:

Actually, you are all trivializing this a bit much. Its not a critical problem but it is an increasingly annoying one IF you want your name have some relevance or meaning to the character or to just simply look like an actual NAME as opposed to gibberish. The maximum combos numbers people are throwing around are silly: “uomnyuogo” is not a name most people would chose but its probably one of the combos in that total. If you want your name to be quasi-reasonable/sane/recognizable as an actual NAME you’ll find yourself spending an ridiculous amount of time trying variation upon variation upon variation of the name you want without much luck. Been there, done that. Annoying as hell.

It’s really not all that hard to find a good combo that both fits a system of lore and is available. And if you have trouble, there are the following sites:

http://fantasynamegenerators.com/human_gw_names.php
http://fantasynamegenerators.com/asura_names.php
http://fantasynamegenerators.com/sylvari_names.php
http://fantasynamegenerators.com/norn_names.php
http://fantasynamegenerators.com/charr_names.php

Thank you for this, its better than starting from scratch perhaps but seriously its not great help if my first use is any indication:

Tancredi Angelico
Clinio Bevacqua
Theodosios Cicchini
Shen Yeh
Nichiren Yao
Lando Sale
Tilmann Deeken
Humfrey Hilgendorf
Asil Yetis
Nadeem Akpinar

Seriously, I think I see one that I would consider for a permanent character – or at least a variation on one. Still . . . better than starting from scratch.

In Guild Wars 1 we had a guildie who died young of brain cancer. As the only ingame tribute we could give this young lady we left her character name on the roster, there to stay until the game is switched off. I would have hated to log in one day and see her gone from the roster because the game wiped out her char names, just to satisfy someone who didn’t want to spend the time to make their own darn name.

Arrow.4619:

Actually, you are all trivializing this a bit much. Its not a critical problem but it is an increasingly annoying one IF you want your name have some relevance or meaning to the character or to just simply look like an actual NAME as opposed to gibberish. The maximum combos numbers people are throwing around are silly: “uomnyuogo” is not a name most people would chose but its probably one of the combos in that total. If you want your name to be quasi-reasonable/sane/recognizable as an actual NAME you’ll find yourself spending an ridiculous amount of time trying variation upon variation upon variation of the name you want without much luck. Been there, done that. Annoying as hell.

In before the names don’t matter crowd: If it doesn’t matter to you do us all a favor the next time you make up a permanent character you want to play . . . roll your face across the keyboard and take that name. The rest of us will take the pronounceable ones that actually look like names.

I’ve made plenty of characters over time and will make plenty of others in the future, i have never had to spend a ridiculous amount of time to find one that was available, and no, i dont use names that are jsut letters squashed together, they’re all totally plausible names, hardly that original

chronometria.3708:

As to the commitment to never reset names….I seem to remember a whole lot of other commitments that changed as time passed. Please see “living world”, “no grind” and “no expansion” for details.

What’s the commitment that changed with living world? it will continue after HoT, maybe there was something else, so pls elaborate.

“No grind” , that commitment didn’t change, you can get the gear you need doing whichever task you want. There is optional grind, but that isnt going against what they said. You dont need to grind that one dungeon to get the gear so you can finally get pased this other dungeon, etc …

I don’t know where you got that information but they never said no to an expansion, they said at the time they weren’t thinking about one but that it was a possibility, they were going to see how they could expand the world with living story. Apparantly they decided why not both, but not a change in commitment as they never said no to one.

dsslive.8473:

“No grind” , that commitment didn’t change, you can get the gear you need doing whichever task you want. There is optional grind, but that isnt going against what they said.

They said that grind for gear would involve only cosmetics, not stats, and that everyone, by level 80, would have BiS gear.

I’ve gotten one word, 5-6 letter, class relevant, race appropriate (for Asura) names within the last year or so, without surnames, without accents…

and this game lets you use alt codes and have spaces for a surname. Quit being uncreative and entitled.

What do you want next, the game to require your medical records and tax statements to verify that you’re still alive? On your death should a family member send Arenanet a copy of your death certificate so they can purge your account?

[quote=5343257;xuse.6817:
As I said, he only uses 3-6 letter unaccented names.
[/quote]

How is that Anet’s problem, other players’ problem, or something Anet should change a longstanding policy that YOU have an issue with, just so you can continue with your self-imposed personal naming requirements?

As basically everyone else has said, Anet’s not revoking names for any reason, short of names breaking the ToS in the first place, so unless a player willingly deletes a character, you’re SoL.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

“In before the names don’t matter crowd:”

Well obviously the names we chose DO matter to us and we don’t want to lose them just because we stepped away from the game for a year, or three.

I’ve made a couple of names recently. The first one, I chose a short plant name. It was taken. I changed a couple of letters and had a name that went through. Took only 2 or 3 minutes. My second name, the first choice was short and taken. I added another letter then a lore appropriate second name and then it went through. Maybe 2 minutes max.

Names can matter, I mean some people just throw together a name and call it good, others actually put thought into it.. and if they lose that name, a temporary break could quite realistically become a permanent break. I don’t know if I’d stop playing the game entirely after losing a name, but I’d stop playing that character probably.

19 character limit, 27 characters = 27^19 = 1570042899082081611640534563 = 1 × 10 ^ 27 possible names.
10 million players with 10 million characters = 100000000000000 = 1 × 10 ^ 14

yea we’re not running out of names any time soon, or ever.

you could try to be even just a bit creative. say add a surname like Wannabe to your characters. Gandalf Wannabe, Legolas Wannabe, etc. they’re probably not taken yet. /shrug

Shenakitten5792:

19 character limit, 27 characters = 27^19 = 1570042899082081611640534563 = 1 × 10 ^ 27 possible names.

This math is useless, since a random string of characters is not, substantively, a “name.”

(This is not an endorsement of the OP.)

ASP.8093:

Shenakitten5792:

19 character limit, 27 characters = 27^19 = 1570042899082081611640534563 = 1 × 10 ^ 27 possible names.

This math is useless, since a random string of characters is not, substantively, a “name.”

(This is not an endorsement of the OP.)

I was about to post the same thing.

I doubt very much that many people would consider a string of 19 consonants to be a name.

And also not an endorsement of the OP.