221 hours over 1,581 days of bank space/hot pve/lion’s arch afk and some wvw.
Suggestion- Name Purge
221 hours over 1,581 days of bank space/hot pve/lion’s arch afk and some wvw.
BTP means no “inactive” accts.
So, no,
Thoughts? This won’t end well. This has been suggested before and it just angers people every time.
Also Anet have stated, repeatedly, that it won’t happen. One of the selling points of the game is that you can come and go as you like. If you can have your names stripped because some random decided you don’t log in enough that’s gone and, as I said a lot of people would be angry.
“Life’s a journey, not a destination.”
Define “inactive.” And what would happen when one of those “inactives” logged in?
But no. There are endless name possibilities out there.
Some names are reserved from early Linking to GW as well.
Nope.
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 is kinda painful to think that there are thousands of awesome names out there that will inevitably just gain dust…
But I also understand that a simple “wipe” isn’t so easily definable.
Besides, even if they did, it wouldn’t do much. City of Heroes tried a name purge at one point, only to find that barely any of the names that were purged got used. It works like this: when people find a name is taken, they try other names until they get one, and then they never revisit the issue. There’s only a select few players who sit and stew on a name for an endless amount of time.
Almost all those awesome names that are gathering dust can be used with a little thought and imagination by adding a title or a special character or changing a letter.
ANet may give it to you.
It is kinda painful to think that there are thousands of awesome names out there that will inevitably just gain dust…
But I also understand that a simple “wipe” isn’t so easily definable.
It is simple. Because it’s not going to happen. Frankly, the reason people ask for this is because they’re either crap at coming up with names that arent from pop culture or are too lazy to put in any effort.
It is kinda painful to think that there are thousands of awesome names out there that will inevitably just gain dust…
But I also understand that a simple “wipe” isn’t so easily definable.
It is simple. Because it’s not going to happen. Frankly, the reason people ask for this is because they’re either crap at coming up with names that arent from pop culture or are too lazy to put in any effort.
That’s not what I was referring to as [not] simple.
It is kinda painful to think that there are thousands of awesome names out there that aren’t taken yet
I fixed that for you.
It is kinda painful to think that there are thousands of awesome names out there that aren’t taken yet
I fixed that for you.
That doesn’t make sense in context. Why would that be painful?
I would like to suggest that a name purge happen so we can free up names from inactive accounts.
Thoughts?
This topic comes up every so often. ANet’s made the same comment multiple times:
- There is no such thing as an “inactive account” — players might come back at any time. We’d hate for people to return only to find out that we took those from them.
- Nor does it make sense to release names on banned accounts — we don’t want players to start a new account and avoid some of their punishment by having access to their old names.
That’s even without talking about the expense of identifying which accounts would count for a purge or the effort spent explaining to people why they lost their names or fixing mistakes.
Finally, why should ANet do this? The only reason any of us wants these names freed up is if we lack the creativity to create other names. Releasing more names isn’t going to make that job easier: it will still be first-come, first-served, so only a few people will benefit from this undertaking.
In short, this is too much work to cater to the minority of players who don’t want to spend a little more time figuring out a name.
They won’t do it. But I do have a question for the OP:
What is considered inactive?
To me, the only account that can be considered inactive is ones where the players had Anet refund something on it and were closed.
I personally don’t consider banned accounts inactive. Those names should stay locked.
I would like to suggest that a name purge happen so we can free up names from inactive accounts.
Thoughts?
No, what I consider a break, some might consider inactive. This game isn’t that old yet.
I got a note from ArcheAge that they were going to purge my name.
I lol’d. They can have it. XD
“I’m finding companies should sell access to forums,
it seems many like them better than the games they comment on.” -Horrorscope.7632
Yeah, this isn’t really a game where you can do a purge realistically. But, I think they could just delete all the permabanned accounts which would free up at least those names. Permabanned folks shouldn’t be returning anyway.
Te Nosce [TC]
It is simple. Because it’s not going to happen. Frankly, the reason people ask for this is because they’re either crap at coming up with names that arent from pop culture or are too lazy to put in any effort.
Pretty much this. Though I’m almost barely impressed with the ridiculous amounts of variations that people manage with Khaleesi and Stark.
And while we are on that note, guess who is the proud owner of the name Khaleesi Dragonbabe as of seconds ago? THIS GUY.
Yeah, this isn’t really a game where you can do a purge realistically. But, I think they could just delete all the permabanned accounts which would free up at least those names. Permabanned folks shouldn’t be returning anyway.
Permabanning the character names is part of the punishment. And shouldn’t isn’t the same as can’t or won’t. If the names are released people banned can buy a new account, make the same display name if they want (but with a different set of numbers after) and remake the chars with the released names from the banned account.
ANet may give it to you.
There is no such thing as an inactive account. There are therefore no names to be purged.
I always wonder what name people wish they had when these topics come up! Usually it’s something like Gandalf or John Snow (why people are wanting to name their character after a British newsreader I’ll never know, but it seems popular!) or something combined from other franchises.
The system is fine as it is. There are literally billions of combinations of letters and spaces you can use to come up with an original name!
I always wonder what name people wish they had when these topics come up! Usually it’s something like Gandalf or John Snow (why people are wanting to name their character after a British newsreader I’ll never know, but it seems popular!) or something combined from other franchises.
The system is fine as it is. There are literally billions of combinations of letters and spaces you can use to come up with an original name!
I have to agree when i see something like xxxxxsephirothxxxxxxx im just like wow i cant even. I used a futurama reference for my first toon and name him fishy joes a female human necro. To this day i still get a lot of people asking me for popplers. So i just make try and be creative or funny.
my toon names
ItzNotEzBeingMe silvari female thief
The Peoples Court asura female mesmer
Wow sux human female ranger pet name is i like wow
So i guess it how you look at it, you might think my names are stupid but its not xXxZelda2334553435zzxxxxx.
Digital Sacrifice Guild
BTP means no “inactive” accts.
So, no,
B2P doesn’t mean you get a name etched in stone forever… It means you can load up and play whenever.
Unfortunately there are tons of names in limbo on accounts that haven’t logged in for a long long time…
Name purges have been common among mmos so it will be ok.
221 hours over 1,581 days of bank space/hot pve/lion’s arch afk and some wvw.
BTP means no “inactive” accts.
So, no,
B2P doesn’t mean you get a name etched in stone forever… It means you can load up and play whenever.
Unfortunately there are tons of names in limbo on accounts that haven’t logged in for a long long time…
Name purges have been common among mmos so it will be ok.
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.
Alternately, come up with a name someone else didn’t altready come up with. You can use SPACES in GW2. It’s not that hard.
Writer/Director – Quaggan Quest
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ky2TGPmMPeQ
Name purges are not common. They do exist granted across many mmos, but never without consideration of the wider impact and rarely more than once in a games lifetime.
The devs have answered this quite definitively – there simply is no gain for them to do this. Existing players will find names to use from a system which is extremely flexible and lapsed players have the option to retain character names should they wish to return the game.
Alternately, come up with a name someone else didn’t altready come up with. You can use SPACES in GW2. It’s not that hard.
This. I named a char created 5 days ago “Kitty”. I guarantee you won’t get a simple name like that in any MMO over 6 months old that uses a single name.
Kitty Lambert? no problem at all. A space solves much.
I just came back to the game from an extended break.
IF name purges happened, I guarantee you that Teh Ouchies (the name of my main, and the one I am un willing to lose), had been stripped of my account, I would never log in again.
Thankfully, those silly things do not happen. And thus, I logged in again this week.
I would like to suggest that a name purge happen so we can free up names from inactive accounts.
Thoughts?
This topic comes up every so often. ANet’s made the same comment multiple times:
- There is no such thing as an “inactive account” — players might come back at any time. We’d hate for people to return only to find out that we took those from them.
- Nor does it make sense to release names on banned accounts — we don’t want players to start a new account and avoid some of their punishment by having access to their old names.
That’s even without talking about the expense of identifying which accounts would count for a purge or the effort spent explaining to people why they lost their names or fixing mistakes.
Finally, why should ANet do this? The only reason any of us wants these names freed up is if we lack the creativity to create other names. Releasing more names isn’t going to make that job easier: it will still be first-come, first-served, so only a few people will benefit from this undertaking.
In short, this is too much work to cater to the minority of players who don’t want to spend a little more time figuring out a name.
Not only that, but some banned accounts may have character names that were well known trouble makers. It could create a case of mistaken identity where someone who recognizes the name might think it’s the same person that got unbanned, and end up harassing the player.
There have been times where I tried a few names that turned out to be taken, but I always manage to come up with a name I like. It isn’t hard if you put some thought into it.
Personally I don’t create names that reference pop culture of any kind because it makes me feel unoriginal. I also don’t make my characters look like something from pop culture, like a particular character from an anime. (“Cosplay” creeps me out actually)
Just be creative and come up with cool names for yourself. In the end, no one cares about your name. :P
I always wonder what name people wish they had when these topics come up! Usually it’s something like Gandalf or John Snow (why people are wanting to name their character after a British newsreader I’ll never know, but it seems popular!)
Well, he was on that Channel 4 news documentary having a toke in the name of science. I’d name a character after him for that if I could
On the topic of a name purge, do not want, will not happen as others have already stated.
dragons, I sometimes wonder if we’ll ever find a way to save us from ourselves.”
If an account has been terminated, then maybe … but that’s like the only case. And since I would guess most terminated accounts are gold seller advertisers with names like ljhafdshdsf, I don’t think anybody is waiting for that one.
RIP City of Heroes
Considering how many posts and threads I’ve read that start out with, “I’m coming back to the game after not playing for months/years/since launch,” how does one decide an account is truly inactive? And how many of these would have come back if they logged on to find all their chars needed to be renamed and their char names taken by others.
But I can guarantee one thing. There would be an unending stream of rant posts on the forums from those who lose names after an absence.
ANet may give it to you.
They have not done a “name purge” in over 10 years on either Guild Wars or Guild Wars 2 I doubt very seriously they are considering it or will ever consider it.
Naming a character is currently horrendous. I don’t RP at all, so I dislike names that are essentially titles like X of/the Y. I don’t want to randomly make up a surname like X Y because the surname bares no significance to me. I just want to be known as X. Every single one word name has been taken. Every last one, including versions that substitute or add a letter here or there in an attempt to compromise.
The thing is it’s really not that difficult to come up with available names, even lore appropriate ones.
I make new characters on a regular basis and the only times I’ve not been able to get the name I wanted it was because I was copying it from somewhere else, because it was something silly and obvious (like Already In Use) or once when I wanted to call an asura Xixxi. Even then I only needed to make a slight variation to the name to get it.
(I think the hardest was Kvothe. That guy has a lot of titles, nicknames etc. and they were all taken, or too long. But then I decided being unable to make him both a mesmer and an engineer was more annoying and went for a different theme instead.)
One thing I do think would be helpful, but maybe not worth the effort it would take, is if the game could tell you the name belongs to a character who has been deleted and may be available in 24 hours. (The game keeps names reserved for 24 hours after the character is deleted so people can delete and re-make them without risking the name.)
I make a lot of temporary characters and sometimes make several with different variations on a name I like to see how it looks in-game, what people shorten it to when talking to me etc. and I sometimes think it would be really unfortunate if someone was trying to use a name I’ve got but I’m not going to keep and they have no way to know it’ll be free tomorrow.
“Life’s a journey, not a destination.”
If you delete a character, presumably that name is then “freed up”?
SoundblasterZ AsusX99Pro 512GBM2SSD 1TBSSD
3TBHDD 16gbRAM Corsair900D Win10Pro Corsair rmi1000w ethernet 100 down, 6 up
Naming a character is currently horrendous. I don’t RP at all, so I dislike names that are essentially titles like X of/the Y. I don’t want to randomly make up a surname like X Y because the surname bares no significance to me. I just want to be known as X. Every single one word name has been taken. Every last one, including versions that substitute or add a letter here or there in an attempt to compromise.
I can absolutely guarantee they’re not all taken.
I recently made 2 new characters with 1 word names: Ambage and Aurhedryn. As I mentioned in my last post I tried a few variations and found those were free too.
Others I’ve used recently include Necrodent (asura necro) Vanirar, and various random things like Amberlile (if it’s a very temporary character and the name doesn’t matter I’ll just type whatever looks vaguely name like).
If you want a particular name or word a useful ‘trick’ can be to try languages other than English. I like using Welsh, Latin and Quenya but that’s just because I usually like how they look. There are free online translators and dictionaries for pretty much every language out there (both real and fictional) and lots of name sites that will tell you what that name is, or similar names, in other languages.
“Life’s a journey, not a destination.”
A lot of my characters are named after Indian and Nepalese cuisine – there’s tons of mileage in that.
SoundblasterZ AsusX99Pro 512GBM2SSD 1TBSSD
3TBHDD 16gbRAM Corsair900D Win10Pro Corsair rmi1000w ethernet 100 down, 6 up
Absolutely every one-word name is not taken. After reading a thread like this one just last week, I thought I’d try making a character (I make approximately 2 characters per week, and very rarely use the same names each week) with a one-word name (I usually use two-word names, having played GW1 for many years). Took only 2 tries to get a name accepted. All I did was change the first letter on an Asura-appropriate double-consonant name.
Truly, one need only use their imagination.
BTP means no “inactive” accts.
So, no,
B2P doesn’t mean you get a name etched in stone forever… It means you can load up and play whenever.
Unfortunately there are tons of names in limbo on accounts that haven’t logged in for a long long time…
Name purges have been common among mmos so it will be ok.
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.
Gaile is very awesome! She’s amazing at communication! I would love to talk to her about what a valid account means.
So we could say that anyone who bought GW2 has a valid account, but at what point are they no longer considered valid around here?
Let’s look at some “things”…
Player A bought GW2, plays regularly or semi regularly or every even every few months… I would consider that valid, no real argument here.
Player B bought GW2, hasn’t played in 1 year or 2 years or 3 years and may or may not come back right? Is that player really valid enough to lock up a name game wide? Is it not enough of a b2p perk that player B can log back in anytime?
Ok so now we have p4f… Player C makes free accounts because that’s valid. They played for a week and haven’t logged in for 6+ months, or eventually 1 year or 2 years and on… Is that account valid enough to lock a name or names game wide?
So technically I could make a bunch of free accounts, locked up names and never logged in again and still be considered valid?
So let’s look at anets end on this now…
Let’s say there were 8 million copies of GW2 sold… There are also X number of p4f accounts…
Does Anet say “We have 8 million valid b2p players and X million valid p4f players currently”? No they don’t. They say units sold and registered users when touting stats, but all those factors are judged internally by monthly concurrent users. The last speculated monthly concurrency rate was 3 million back in October 2015.
We all know that there are registered accounts with names used that have not logged in for a long long long time, so are those players truly valid enough to prevent current players or new players from using those names?
Valid has to be better defined here I think…
221 hours over 1,581 days of bank space/hot pve/lion’s arch afk and some wvw.
(edited by Swagger.1459)
I thought it was quite clear: a valid account is one which has not been banned or otherwise deleted.
One important factor I don’t think you’re taking into consideration is that character names are very important to some people.
For me the name is a defining part of the character. One of them I’ve used in every western RPG I’ve played for the past 16 years, including MMOs. Others I make up specifically for a character and I spend a lot of time finding something appropriate.
To me suggesting that character names could be removed after the character has been created is like suggesting their appearance or race and profession could be randomized. It would destroy a character I spent a lot of time creating.
Like a lot of people I also take breaks from games periodically. Either for real-life things or simply because I want to play other games.
If I came back to a game after a break, even one I really enjoyed and had expected to keep playing for months or years, to find that all my character names had been removed because I didn’t meet some quota for logging in I would never play that game again. I would also warn all my friends to avoid it because I know they would be as upset at having their characters destroyed as I would be. (I would quite like to be able to request a refund but I assume I wouldn’t be eligible since my purchase would have to have been several months earlier.)
But thankfully that’s not something I, or anyone else, has to worry about with Guild Wars 2 (or GW1) because as Gaile said in that post you quoted it’s not something Anet will ever do.
“Life’s a journey, not a destination.”
But thankfully that’s not something I, or anyone else, has to worry about with Guild Wars 2 (or GW1) because as Gaile said in that post you quoted it’s not something Anet will ever do.
They have actually purged names once before in GW1 in order to release the names from invalid accounts, which were from trials/betas or something like that.
If an account has been terminated, then maybe … but that’s like the only case. And since I would guess most terminated accounts are gold seller advertisers with names like ljhafdshdsf, I don’t think anybody is waiting for that one.
I was so annoyed the other day when I wanted to have the name Gfghifasdk but that was taken, so I had to use an accented í instead.
If an account has been terminated, then maybe … but that’s like the only case. And since I would guess most terminated accounts are gold seller advertisers with names like ljhafdshdsf, I don’t think anybody is waiting for that one.
I was so annoyed the other day when I wanted to have the name Gfghifasdk but that was taken, so I had to use an accented í instead.
You could have added a title you know, like Gfghifasdk Teh Goldseller.
ANet may give it to you.
A lot of my characters are named after Indian and Nepalese cuisine – there’s tons of mileage in that.
QFT. Cuisine offers the best names in history.
A lot of my characters are named after Indian and Nepalese cuisine – there’s tons of mileage in that.
QFT. Cuisine offers the best names in history.
The game can never have too many bacon-themed names.