Guild Wars 2

ProtoGunner.4953:

I use surnames since in GW1 you had to take at least two names. Also it gives more realistic names and variety imo. No one is just called Karn or Peter. They are Sir Peter the Impertinent or Karn from the Underwood. It’s so much better.

There are a lot of WoWerz here who think they only can use one name and the results are like Pétêr or Kârñ. Horrible, horrible or even worse: Karrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrn or Khaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan. How in God’s name can you name your character like this? What are those people really. Kills the whole immersion.

What? WoW only allows single word names?

On the one hand that makes no sense at all given the number of characters in Warcraft games with surnames, family/clan names, titles etc.

On the other hand that explains a lot of odd conversations I’ve had with new players in both GW2 and Elder Scrolls Online. The strangest was a guy in ESO who was spamming chat demanding to know how so many people got “invisible letters” in their name.

Don’t post a second time is the best fix for the bug.

I re-posted it because otherwise the entire topic just showed up as blank, there was no option to go back to the first page and nothing on the second one.

Do not post anything, leave the blank as blank and problem goes away.

Danikat.8537:

What? WoW only allows single word names?

On the one hand that makes no sense at all given the number of characters in Warcraft games with surnames, family/clan names, titles etc.

On the other hand that explains a lot of odd conversations I’ve had with new players in both GW2 and Elder Scrolls Online. The strangest was a guy in ESO who was spamming chat demanding to know how so many people got “invisible letters” in their name.

It’s a way to tell when people come directly from a much older game that doesn’t allow spaces. :P

Bruno.3812:

What happens then if there are 1000 chars named John in the game and you want to email one of them but only know that the name is John? What happens if someone sends items to John but instead the items go to John? Support won’t help in this sort of situation. They’ve already said emailed items are considered gifts.

Oh, I don’t know John@Bruno.3812. How could a schema be made that could fit it? I just don’t know…

OneYenShort.3189:

Frankly such name locks should NEVER be implemented in multiplayer games at all. The time for what that beginning programer level design offers left years (if not decades) back.

It is one level of “realism” that I wish more games would be more cognizant about implementing.
I have zero issues if companies want to make it such that per your account, you can only have unique character names. Aka. Both Player A and Player B could have a character called “John”, but neither A nor B could have a second character named “John”.

I actually thought about this as well. Every single GW2 account has a 100% UNIQUE account name, so why can’t everything important be linked to that, making it not matter if there are multiple characters named, for exmple, “Rio” (my name) in the game?

OneYenShort.3189:

Bruno.3812:

What happens then if there are 1000 chars named John in the game and you want to email one of them but only know that the name is John? What happens if someone sends items to John but instead the items go to John? Support won’t help in this sort of situation. They’ve already said emailed items are considered gifts.

Oh, I don’t know John@Bruno.3812. How could a schema be made that could fit it? I just don’t know…

Having multiple accounts have the exact same character name might work in games where there are separate servers or realms where you dont interact or see others outside your server, but it would be a big problem in a game like this. Unless you’re saying each and every character name would always have the display name and number attached to it, even in chat. That would be long, ugly, and most people would dislike that. Even WoW, which allows people to have the same char name, only allows it on separate servers. If you switch servers to one where someone has the same name, you have to change yours.

It’s a bad idea.

The biggest problem I could see with this is it would limit things like mail, whispering etc. because you’d have to either know the account name (potentially including the number if the account name isn’t unique) or the person would have to be in the same map as you so you can right click and send it that way.

Unless your account name was always displayed, which wouldn’t be ideal IMO.

Anet should in my opinion finally alow it that a name can exist as many times as possible, due to stopping this crap decision around linking character names to servers so that a name can exist per server just only once and change this stupid system out to a much better and more senseful system of linking character names to the account name, so that pretty mnuch everyone can have a name once per accountname…

if you serriously see then 2 characters that have the exact identical name, you are then still able to differentiate them with more than enough options:

• Comparison of the Account Names, as that instantly shows you which Character Name belongs to account A and which one to account B

• Comparison of Character Races that were used… as not every character with an identical name must be also played by the identical race

• Comparison of Character Class..same as above, not every identical name character must also be played as the identical Class

I’m planning of having Cosplay Characters, currently are two in the works and for a player that likes to have Cosplay Characters its always important to get also the fitting names and when possible without the weird usage of accents the make the names not look right just to get an as close as possible name you can get, what is really oftenly a pain in the peep with really famous and loved characters by many people.

It makes the whole thign sad – very sad – when you just can’t get the name that you want, just due to such dumb decisions to artificially limitate the amount of identical character names to servers to have just only 1 per server…

In real life, there can also even exist hundreds of thousands of people that can have exactly the completely identical name as like me.
So why can’t we have this also here for the game, unlimitless identical names, which just get identified, which character with an identical name belogns to which acounnt, by its unique accountname and accountnumber that is attached to it..

Because why the hell ever, Anet allows for it to have identical account names, and differentiates the,m by automatically attached account numbers so that practically every single account name can exist exactly identically 9999 times practically …

I just would like to have my current two Cosplay Characters to have also their names with their names being spelled correctly without accents, without weird letters that just look as similar as possible to the letter that you actually want, without having to replace some letters with wrong ones to make the name just sound as similarly as kittenible to the original correct spelling of it just to have in many cases a super tiny chance to get the name you like for a potential cosplay character, without that the name looks like some kind if weird spelling abomination at the end…

Allowing us to have unlimited identical character names, that are linked with our unique account names instead of beign linked to servers with a silly low limit of 1 per server instantly would solve the whole problem here easily

My example for this here being Inori Yuzuriha (original) You can’t get it anymore, absolutely EVERY SINGLE possible combo is already taken by someone through accents..
I am just lucky/happy, that I was for myself still able to get the very close looking
“Inorï Yuzurïha” (but it is on a closer look just very weird looking ingame)

With a system, that links unlimitless identical character names to account names instead of one per server, everyone could have that name who likes it, just like in real life where everyone can have potentially the exact identical name…

Chad.6104:

Having multiple accounts have the exact same character name might work in games where there are separate servers or realms where you dont interact or see others outside your server, but it would be a big problem in a game like this. Unless you’re saying each and every character name would always have the display name and number attached to it, even in chat. That would be long, ugly, and most people would dislike that. Even WoW, which allows people to have the same char name, only allows it on separate servers. If you switch servers to one where someone has the same name, you have to change yours.

It’s a bad idea.

1. You actually get blind to it. See Champions Online.
2. What gets displayed are simple strings. It again is beginner coding to be able to reduce what is obviously displayed vs what is actually used (say if you right clicked on a name.)

Now you are welcome to your opinion, but it is a worse idea to continue to make names so restrictive in any game any more. Also I’m not calling for GW2 to make changes to its current system. I’m just calling the design Anet chose to use stupid, and have been calling such designs stupid for the last decade.

BTW, if I’m remembering correctly, look at your friend’s list or even the guild page to see who is online. It doesn’t just list character names does it.

Orpheal.8263:

A rant about “cosplay characters”

Or, you could try not copying things from your favorite cartoon shows to place them in a fiction they don’t belong in anyway, and try to be original.

You do realize that the entire concept of “cosplay characters” is against the EULA in pretty much every MMO in the first place for legal reasons, despite not being enforced. A quick cease and desist from the company that actually owns whatever anime nonsense you’re attempting to replicate would have you changing the character name anyway, which is why that policy exists in the first place.

Asking Anet to make changes to the naming system specifically so you can violate a third party’s intellectual property is not a good way to argue for what you’re trying to get.

PopeUrban.2578:

Or, you could try not copying things from your favorite cartoon shows to place them in a fiction they don’t belong in anyway, and try to be original.

I am the nine tailed zhaitan…

@ pope:

I guess you have never understood at all so far, what the real deal it is about making a cosplay character at all, nor do I believe that you even understand cosplay in itself at all and why it is fun to do have characters that come as close as possible to other characters of different frachises, be it games, be it books, be it movies or whatever else.

You may be right about what you said, but do you ever have thought about it, why such stuff doesn’t get enforced?

The answer is simple:
Because it would hurt massively the “image” of said companies, if they even try to cease and desist thousands over thousands of players over unendless of games just for being fans of their franchise to the point, that they named some freaking virtual pixels that will never come at all any close to the 100% of being an exact same looking clone of the original after some kind of other character of an other franchise….

If any serious company would be so dumb to enforce something like this, they’d just dig their own grave by the huge negative backlash that this acting would cause and I dont want just to think on the massive *peep*storms that this move would create all over the world in countless of games, if suddenly countless players all over the world would lose their character names, just because of a third party company effectively and by that kind of move practically forbidding people to be fans of their franchises in other games.

As long people don’t do anything “commercial” at all by abusing the name I use to make not real money with it “somehow” out of nowhere – is everything ok…

So long people just create cosplay characters for fun and have nothing commercialy in mind with them, do cosplay characters live in a tolerated grey zone in MMOs…

It is “original” to make cosplay characters, because you need to be oftenly in games very creative to find and use the right things that just the game you play offers for you, and combine the looks of things that the game provides for you to make out of all the stuff something, that actually looks pretty well similar to an other character you might know from an other IP/franchise outside of GW2.

It is more challenging to try to recreate known characters as close as possibly you can get, than to make just a complete own character.
Making own characters isn’t more original than to make a cosplay character, it is just in fact only much simpler. :P

Your last sentence is nothing but just an wild accusation out of thin air.
It comes paired with the a biased opinion, as if everyone who creates a cosplay character would do this only to make profit with the third party IP, what would be the only real deal of a violation, if you abuse a third party Ip for personal bargain…
Or differently said, as if everyone who creates cosplay characters does that with the sole intention of “harming that other third party company” that way – just alone the thought on this is laughable, because when you are a fan of a franchise/IP, you will want to support it, not to willingly harm it by making money for your own profit out of something, that isn’t your IP.

That Anet self doesnt take cosplaying characters in GW2 as much serious as like how you do, as it looks like, does show already also simply the pure existance of Dragon Ball Super Sayan Hairstyles for Charrs … /enough said <3

I’m asking not Anet to improve the naming system, so that I can violate other comanies IP..
I’m asking Anet to improve the naming system, so that all players have a fair chance at getting a name that they like and not just only 1 person per server, because real life also doesn’t make any differences about the fact, how many people can have just beside you the exactly identical name..

The whole “issue” here is just only a matter of how you identify in case of a game rule violation, which character exactly of the x identically named characters that exists belongs to the player that violated the game rules..
And thats exactly where the unique account name comes into play, which is already more than enough to warrant that customer support will always be quickly able to find the real culprit among a mass of identically named characters.
——

If everyone would follow after your logic here, then would have to be cosplay in general to be forbidden completely and we wouldn’t see it anywhere anymore in the world, because peoplle would have instantly always to fear being sued for just attempting to look like someone/something else just for a brief moment in their lifes

Don’t you think that this is kind of very absurd???
——

Improving the naming system also helps people that rather prefer to create only own characters with self thought out names…because even with self thought out names it CAN happen, that you come up maybe with a name, where you are believing, that it must be 100% sure not already taken, because “of you having it thought out right now, right here”

But this kind of thinking is making up for yourself only just illusions, because you can NEVER be 100% sure about it ever that a name, where you believe that nobody else on this world could have come up with that same name out of their mind.

Should other players practically be “punished” not being able to get their beloved character names exactly like they thought about them how they should look like, only because someone else in this big world was in a game just a bit quicker at registrating said name for one of their characters for GW2?

No, I don’t think so, I don’t think that players should get punished by not allowing them to let them have their wanted character names, just because of being not fast enough to registrate a name as first person, before someone else on the planet does it, especially when systems like my proposed improvement would easily solve the whole issue for everyone in an instant, making it at least possible under the account name system of GW2, that every single name you can think of could exist in this game then exactly maximum per account name 9999 times – 1 per account name and its numbers. what would be already a huge improvement over just laughable 1 per server. So practically 9999 high infinity as account names are unendless to come up with.

Orpheal.8263:

Second Rant About Cosplaying

I’m sorry, but the only reason I keep seeing here to gut the current system is because people have issues coming up with original names. If the desired name for your cosplay character is taken, get clever/creative with it. People named The Inedible Hulk and The Incredible Hunk are far more amusing than their counterpart of origin, The Incredible Hulk. Think outside the box, people.

On the other hand, if you’re having issues with short names, Khaleesi Stark, One Winged Sephiroth, consider a random name generator instead. It can only help you in these cases.

On an aside note, in all of my 12 characters on my account, only once I have encountered a name being taken. It was Razzle Dazzle (bet you can even guess what class it was going to be for). In the end I ended up with a name that fits how I view the character even better.

Also, your rant is all over the place and completely ignores the point PopeUrban was getting at. The point being that Arenanet has a rule in place so that if by some random occurrence Disney doesn’t like your Mickey Mouse Asura, they can tell you to change it without further argument. You took his quote and ran yourself off a cliff with it.

Orpheal.8263:

It is “original” to make cosplay characters, because you need to be oftenly in games very creative to find and use the right things that just the game you play offers for you, and combine the looks of things that the game provides for you to make out of all the stuff something, that actually looks pretty well similar to an other character you might know from an other IP/franchise outside of GW2.

No…. it is not original. It is by definition the exact opposite of original. I don’t think you understand that word. It is more challenging to make a convincing cosplay. Not original.

Orpheal.8263:

If any serious company would be so dumb to enforce something like this, they’d just dig their own grave by the huge negative backlash that this acting would cause

Serious companies have and do enforce something like that without digging their own grave. Disney is still around and so is Marvel (owned by Disney now actually). Both continue to make ALOT of money despite making efforts to protect their IP.

See the issue, generally, may not be that a given player is playing around, not engaged in any commercial endeavor, with a character appearance plus name that matches another’s IP. Rather the issue can be that Anet is publishing digital content that includes said character, and is profiting from the player and arguably his character.

BumbleBee.8456:

Triple Trouble starting in x minutes. Please join my squad /squadjoin XXXX 123Lëgöläs123 XXXX

Attempt 1,
attempt 2,
attempt x*y

/ragequit

Please can we have a cut and paste option on the chat window

No umlauts? NO SQUAD FOR YOU!!!

Because that’s how Cömmändër XXXX 123Lëgöläs123 XXXX rolls, baby.

…

(But yeah, the absence of chat cut-and-paste functionality in a 21st-century MMO is a crime punishable under Sëctïön 123 of the Ünïförm Cödë Öf XXXX 123Lëgöläs123 XXXX, so ArenaNet had better implement cut-and-paste soon if they don’t want to end up in Ümläüt Cöürt, where penalties are harsh and heavily accented.)

For pete’s sake, just give your character a surname!
Personally, I think most characters without surnames feel incomplete, almost as if their ‘owner’ couldn’t be bothered… which I’m sure is the case sometimes, which is sad.

Pure Heart.1456:

For pete’s sake, just give your character a surname!
Personally, I think most characters without surnames feel incomplete, almost as if their ‘owner’ couldn’t be bothered… which I’m sure is the case sometimes, which is sad.

I’m sure that’s part of it, but I don’t think it’s fair to assume that’s the case for everyone who wants a 1 word name. Especially when two races (the asura and sylvari) don’t have surnames in lore, so a lot of people want a 1 word name to suit that.

An easy way around that for the sylvari is to use a two word first name, but that doesn’t really work for asura who also tend to have short, mono or dual syllabic names.

But that’s where I think it’s helpful to have an idea of the kind of character you’re making and the kind of name you want rather than simply one specific name picked out. That way it’s easy to change it. Even if that idea is vague. When I was making my asura I had a general idea of the sound I wanted for the name, finally settled on a spelling and found it was taken. So I changed one letter and got it, and the name is still basically the same.

One technique is to use ‘special’ characters to replace normal ones.
For example, the letter " e " becomes " è "

However, all this arguing here doesn’t change my standport on it, that this game should offer a better and fairer naming system, that allows players easier to have the names that they want.
To limitate names to have each name per server only once is no fair solution, when there exist easy alternative ways to handle the naming system instead over the unique accountname and account number combination to enable players alot more and safer that they can get for their characters the names that they want, regardless if it is now a name of something known or not, because even if you try to get something, where you are yourself 100% sure, that this name isn’t taken it can happen that the name is already taken and you get under this current naming system punished for not being just the first who claimed the name…. what is then a real punishment for people that see, that the person who claimed the wanted name first has become since years inactive or got even maybe perma banned by now and may never return to make any usage of the name in the end.

The whole thread here would simply not exist at all, the whole issue around it, if the overall naming system of GW2 wouldnt so harshly limitate the amount of names and enforce upon all of us, that every single name can exist only once per server, when in real life you can have also tons of persons that can have an identical name like you, ya even names of known things or IPs or even environmental places and other weird and crazy stuff.

No player simply should be punished by not getting the names they want, just only because they were too late on their server to claim it, before someone else does, cause there are so many different factors that make it still for the customer service very easy to differentiate between the players with the unique accountname being the simplest and strongest factor of all that lets you instantly see who is who in regard of any game rule violations or so where that kind of research would matter at all, or when sending ingame mails to know your receivers accountname to ensure, that the right person gets the mail and not someone else that has simply a character with identical name.

I would rather there not be name wipes or anything of the sort, and If the name is taken, someone beat you do it. As GW1, we had sir names, it was good for having that name you wanted and just add something on the end, I use many different variations of “Throttle Fox”

My ranger will always and hopefully forever be “Charr Merchant” used to run around with a friend who no longer plays who was called “Human Merchant” much funnies involved with a name like this. But, I know one day I’ll be forced to use a name change if I play it too much and someone reports me, toon just had its 3rd birthday too

A better idea is for Anet to do what Star Trek Online does. Anyone can have any name but after their name in a chat box would be their account name. So in chat it would show character name@account name. In open world it would just show the person’s character name over their head unless you select them then it would show the same as the chat box where it shows your target.

IndigoSundown.5419:

BrotherBelial.3094:

Add a surname. All mine have them, that way, I get what I want.

This is my tactic also. I’ve named 15 or so characters since launch and had one name rejected, even recently. Since my first game was GW, and one could have a surname there, I was surprised (to say the least) when I first played a game that allowed only a single name.

To be fair, most people dont realize you CAN have accented characters as well, which means non-english names work too. I mean, I named my rev Duibhre Coille. Didnt use the accents for it though since it went through without them.

Read it all and my opinion hasn’t changed. I started with 2 years but that’s certainly flexible.
Just out of curiosity, what does everyone think happens to stuff you have in a guild vault after that much time, let alone whether your still a member, or anyone is still a guild member?
At some point, it’s not coming back, it’s starting over. Whatever that point is, is where the names should be freed. I’d imagine Anet could get a pretty good idea of when that point is.

Tumult.2578:

Read it all and my opinion hasn’t changed. I started with 2 years but that’s certainly flexible.
Just out of curiosity, what does everyone think happens to stuff you have in a guild vault after that much time, let alone whether your still a member, or anyone is still a guild member?
At some point, it’s not coming back, it’s starting over. Whatever that point is, is where the names should be freed. I’d imagine Anet could get a pretty good idea of when that point is.

And once again that point should be never. If I want to quit for 3 years and come back I should still have my name. You should have started day one like the rest of us.

Majic.4801:

XXXX 123Legolas123 XXXX

Or you could just use umlauts like everyone else.

Signed,

XXXX 123Lëgöläs123 XXXX

Pfftt… that’s nothing compared to my XXXX 123Legolas321 XXXX.

BumbleBee.8456:

Triple Trouble starting in x minutes. Please join my squad /squadjoin XXXX 123Lëgöläs123 XXXX

Attempt 1,
attempt 2,
attempt x*y

/ragequit

Please can we have a cut and paste option on the chat window

Yes, this is a thing that should be pretty high on the Dev list. The QoL on this is surprisingly large. Because I don’t know about anyone else but, the moment I see special character’s in a name, that person is dead to me. Not even going to bother trying to type it out. They are just dead to me…..

OP, I have 40 to 50 characters and haven’t had too much trouble naming them. I created my original character at launch with a surname. Most of my character since have followed with that surname. It’s especially helpfully in maintaining relationships in game as players know the surname, not the first name. Even my “colorfully” named characters for PvP haven’t been too hard to create.

One thing that could help is an increase in the amount of characters in a name. I’ve had trouble working around that numerous times.

DeWolfe.2174:

One thing that could help is an increase in the amount of characters in a name. I’ve had trouble working around that numerous times.

That would be nice

If Anet make it more than one player can have same name some how probably you see a much larger thread than this appear on forum. It would not be nice thread either.

Dinks.2478:

Tumult.2578:

Read it all and my opinion hasn’t changed. I started with 2 years but that’s certainly flexible.
Just out of curiosity, what does everyone think happens to stuff you have in a guild vault after that much time, let alone whether your still a member, or anyone is still a guild member?
At some point, it’s not coming back, it’s starting over. Whatever that point is, is where the names should be freed. I’d imagine Anet could get a pretty good idea of when that point is.

And once again that point should be never. If I want to quit for 3 years and come back I should still have my name. You should have started day one like the rest of us.

Actually started on day 3. What does that have to do with this topic?
If you started on day one then your likely playing multiple characters and have seen how difficult it is to have a name anywhere near what you’d want/like.

This is not the same game we started with. It’s free to play now and a lot more names are needed. I feel entitled too, playing from the start, but I probably should change that because new players have just as much right to the game, and a name, as we do.
You may think a 2 year break is fine. Don’t be surprised if the whole game is gone in 2 years.
I offered my opinion, so did you. Let’s respect them both.

Orpheal.8263:

However, all this arguing here doesn’t change my standport on it, that this game should offer a better and fairer naming system, that allows players easier to have the names that they want.

The system is already fair, it’s just not the ‘fair’ system you envision.

ArenaNet is never going to display Account Names in the game, or elsewhere, as that would be a security risk.

As for Display Names, since those do not have to be unique, it would be possible to have to know the 4-digit number, as well, when trying to differentiate all the ‘Johns’ or ‘Legolases’ or whatever popular name happened to abound.

The whole charactername@displayname could (nay, would) be quite confusing.

Tumult.2578:

Dinks.2478:

Tumult.2578:

Read it all and my opinion hasn’t changed. I started with 2 years but that’s certainly flexible.
Just out of curiosity, what does everyone think happens to stuff you have in a guild vault after that much time, let alone whether your still a member, or anyone is still a guild member?
At some point, it’s not coming back, it’s starting over. Whatever that point is, is where the names should be freed. I’d imagine Anet could get a pretty good idea of when that point is.

And once again that point should be never. If I want to quit for 3 years and come back I should still have my name. You should have started day one like the rest of us.

Actually started on day 3. What does that have to do with this topic?
If you started on day one then your likely playing multiple characters and have seen how difficult it is to have a name anywhere near what you’d want/like.

This is not the same game we started with. It’s free to play now and a lot more names are needed. I feel entitled too, playing from the start, but I probably should change that because new players have just as much right to the game, and a name, as we do.
You may think a 2 year break is fine. Don’t be surprised if the whole game is gone in 2 years.
I offered my opinion, so did you. Let’s respect them both.

Mine is not an opinion, its a statement of fact. And no, this game is not free to play. The “free to play” model is an open trial.

More importantly, assuming they are free to play then no actually they don’t have as much right to the game as me.

Orpheal.8263:

Anet should in my opinion finally alow it that a name can exist as many times as possible

No thank you – I don’t want another player going round chatting verbal abuse at people in map chat with the same name as one of my characters.

penelopehannibal.8947:

Orpheal.8263:

Anet should in my opinion finally alow it that a name can exist as many times as possible

No thank you – I don’t want another player going round chatting verbal abuse at people in map chat with the same name as one of my characters.

if anyone does this, you can instantly differentiate that person between you and your character with the indentical name with the help of your unique accountname/acckittennumber..

problem solved

NEXT!

Shouldnt be really so hard to understand how less of a problem at all it is to identify players through accountnames… it the god darn freakign first thign you even SEE, when you report someone /facepalm

Orpheal.8263:

Shouldnt be really so hard to understand how less of a problem at all it is to identify players through accountnames… it the god darn freakign first thign you even SEE, when you report someone /facepalm

What should also be easy to understand is that this all involves extra work to change the underlying mechanics of how character and account names function in GW2. A lot of extra work. And the justification is: a fraction of the community wants to choose names that others already have.

Alternatively, we can keep the current system (with both its pros & cons), use the existing workarounds, and let the devs work on other issues that affect a greater fraction of players.

Orpheal.8263:

However, all this arguing here doesn’t change my standport on it, that this game should offer a better and fairer naming system, that allows players easier to have the names that they want.
To limitate names to have each name per server only once is no fair solution, when there exist easy alternative ways to handle the naming system instead over the unique accountname and account number combination to enable players alot more and safer that they can get for their characters the names that they want, regardless if it is now a name of something known or not, because even if you try to get something, where you are yourself 100% sure, that this name isn’t taken it can happen that the name is already taken and you get under this current naming system punished for not being just the first who claimed the name…. what is then a real punishment for people that see, that the person who claimed the wanted name first has become since years inactive or got even maybe perma banned by now and may never return to make any usage of the name in the end.

The whole thread here would simply not exist at all, the whole issue around it, if the overall naming system of GW2 wouldnt so harshly limitate the amount of names and enforce upon all of us, that every single name can exist only once per server, when in real life you can have also tons of persons that can have an identical name like you, ya even names of known things or IPs or even environmental places and other weird and crazy stuff.

No player simply should be punished by not getting the names they want, just only because they were too late on their server to claim it, before someone else does, cause there are so many different factors that make it still for the customer service very easy to differentiate between the players with the unique accountname being the simplest and strongest factor of all that lets you instantly see who is who in regard of any game rule violations or so where that kind of research would matter at all, or when sending ingame mails to know your receivers accountname to ensure, that the right person gets the mail and not someone else that has simply a character with identical name.

There is nothing unfair about the current naming limitations.

Not getting to use a given name because it has already been claimed is not being punished.

That said, I like the way Cryptic handled this in CO. Anyone can have any name, but there is an @account name tag associated (even if not seen) with each name.

@ ashen: what is practically exactly the same thing I want all the time here and what we halfway already have, as the account names in GW2 dont’t get shown to players, unless you try to report them. Then and only then you see them…

It could be made even a bit simpler by making it just possible to right click on a name in chat to see the accountname who has written in the chat, so that we don’t even have to go as far as usign the report methd just to see the identity behind the writer in case of checking, that the person who has written maybe something bad and uses a name of someone who we might know uses a character with the same name isn’t the same person…

Lets say two peopoel with a character that have the identical name “blue smurf” just for example are in the same map instance and write both in map chat, participating both in the discussion.

one has now for example the accountname “realone.1337”, the other has the accountname “fakeone.6666” and blue smurf from account fakeone.6666 writes now in the discussion somethign bad, violates some game rules massively….

What will happen now, to quickly solve the situation? Correct, this order:

Right Click Blue Smurf 1 to see hes realone.1337
Right Click Blue Smurf 2 to see hes fakeone.6666
Identify fakeone as the bad guy whos to be reported now
Click from the already opened window that enabled you to see from the Chat Window already the accountname of the Writer now the bottom option of Report Player

Done.

Rest does as usual the Customer Support.

Sure, its absulutely no super high priority to improve the naming system, but this would be absolutely an enrichment for the game, even if just useful for a small part of the community, it would be still a quality of life improvement by enabling all players that way to have the names that you wan,t without gettign forded to use cheap “accent/special letter tricks” to get the name that you want or to be forced to use surnames when you actually dont want to have one maybe for your character

Orpheal.8263:

@ ashen: what is practically exactly the same thing I want all the time here and what we half way alreay have, as the acokittennames in GW2 dont’t get shown to players, unless you try to report them, then and only then you see them…

Again, you never see Account Names; only Display Names, and they are not unique, save for the 4 digits after each.

I’m not sure how easy it would be to memorize (to differentiate) John.6938 from John.3947 or John.2284…and again, from John.9477.

Orpheal.8263:

penelopehannibal.8947:

Orpheal.8263:

Anet should in my opinion finally alow it that a name can exist as many times as possible

No thank you – I don’t want another player going round chatting verbal abuse at people in map chat with the same name as one of my characters.

if anyone does this, you can instantly differentiate that person between you and your character with the indentical name with the help of your unique accountname/acckittennumber..

problem solved

NEXT!

Shouldnt be really so hard to understand how less of a problem at all it is to identify players through accountnames… it the god darn freakign first thign you even SEE, when you report someone /facepalm

When I chat to someone in map chat, I don’t want to right click their name to find out which player they REALLY are every time someone speaks. It’s not as simple as you think – we are not robots. We’re human beings.

If someone starts trolling map chat under one of my characters, they’re gunna see my character’s name. Two days later, the real me will be standing in DR being accused of trolling map chat. Why? Because people just don’t right click everybody’s name every two seconds to see who they are.

Also, if I want to chat to someone called Thomas Baxendale, I want to chat to Thomas Baxendale without having to check if the person is TBaxendale.1234 instead of TBaxendale.4567

Then it are display names, is there realyl such a big differences?? For me are the display names the accountnames, which we share also here with the forums that we see here displayed.

The four digits just makes it clear, how often a certain account/display name can exist for the game. Exactly 9999 times.

So unless you are not someone, who has made your wished character name as one of the 9999 people that can share the name account/display name with you, this would be the olny situation where you woulnd need to have another account to have again a 1:9999 chance with that one to get your wished character with the name that you exactly want.

The trading post is full with thousands over thousands of items in the hundreds of thousands of amount range (digits)… far more data volume, than name lists will ever produce.
There is I guess not at all a memory problem with names for this game, when the game can memorize already sooo many items in the trading post and can differentiate all the offers and biddings ect. and that very fast while everything around the data flow is constantly changing every second due to new offers being added, offers beign removed and so on …

There shouldn’t be any major problems with memory from any static non changing data as like name lists for character names of player accounts for a data bank.
If yes, then I really start to ask myself, how the hell this game could handle then the TP already for all the time, when it wouldnt be also able to handle the increased data volume from limitless character names based on limited account/display names that can exist maximum 9999 times per name.

Orpheal.8263:

snip

Don’t know what you’re talking about, since you originally mentioned letting more than one account share the same character name, I’ll put forward another problem:

What if someone trolling the real Thomas Baxendale, making homophobic or derogatory remarks towards people, took screenshots and deleted his or her character, then posted the images through several social media websites? Or sent said pictures to Thomas Baxendale’s friends saying “This is what he’s like when you’re offline”? How would right-clicking to find their account name solve that then?

Please.. just no. Let us keep things the way they are when it comes to character names. It’s the only fair way to do it – first come first served. Unless you’re permanently banned for cheating or being abusive, you shouldn’t lose or have to share your character name.

Dor Bell.7368:

My friend bought gw1 ,, but not gw2. Recently I was able to “take” one of his screen names for my own.

When the game was in development the deal was something along the lines of that Guild Wars 1 names were reserved for a year if you linked them with your account, then after that others could take your name even if linked. I believe they also made all GW1 names reserved for a period of time no matter what.

The one word names were ALL up for grabs though since in GW1 you couldn’t have one word names.

Solocup.3069:

Not to sure if this has been brought up or not sorry in advance if it has. but maybe ANET can “flush” dead accounts older than 3 years. i know how this sounds “what right does anet have to delete character names blah blah blah”

Even someone who has been out of game for 2+ years might come back, how are anet going to refund their name if they give it to someone else? What about that second person? They took the name without knowing it was previously used. Do they have to change their character name just because the original returned and complained?

Really this is a non-option.

Choose a ‘surname’ and attach that to all your toons. Xowen Stylus? or even a random set of characters. That should mean almost all the names you want are available.

I don’t really agree with “flushing” inactive names/characters, either. If there was some kind of technical reason/need for it and it was only on characters that have been inactive for a very long time then…maybe. But not specifically JUST to release the taken names.

Like others have said the best way to make sure you get the name you want is to use a last/surname. Make one up that you like, and odds are your name will always be free. As for Asura not having last names….Asura names are pretty random and easy to make up. There was even an Asura NPC in GW1 named “Ybbob” (Bobby, spelled backwards).

The name I like to use, “Rio”, is always taken….everywhere….within minutes of the servers opening. So…I got around it by making a last name that I ALSO like very much. Dunno why others can’t do the same.

Rio.4259:

I don’t really agree with “flushing” inactive names/characters, either. If there was some kind of technical reason/need for it and it was only on characters that have been inactive for a very long time then…maybe. But not specifically JUST to release the taken names.

Like others have said the best way to make sure you get the name you want is to use a last/surname. Make one up that you like, and odds are your name will always be free. As for Asura not having last names….Asura names are pretty random and easy to make up. There was even an Asura NPC in GW1 named “Ybbob” (Bobby, spelled backwards).

The name I like to use, “Rio”, is always taken….everywhere….within minutes of the servers opening. So…I got around it by making a last name that I ALSO like very much. Dunno why others can’t do the same.

Some people like to follow the lore and Asura and Sylvari don’t have last names.

However, they do have titles. So those of you who like to follow lore, give your Asura or Sylvari a title if they end up having a taken name.

Tumult.2578:

Actually started on day 3. What does that have to do with this topic?
If you started on day one then your likely playing multiple characters and have seen how difficult it is to have a name anywhere near what you’d want/like.

Actually no, i haven’t seen that.

I try to pick names with a RP approach, trying to find one that would fit the character the best (sometimes i do the opposite – think of a good name, and make a character that would fit it). The only time i ran into duplicate name problem was when i was too tired to think of a name of my own, and tried to use something less original.

I just don’t call my characters “Bob”, “Naruto” or “Legolas”. You probably shouldn’t either.

I rerolled my warrior within the last 6 months. Tried a short name. Taken. Added a title. Went through.

Be a little creative, be a little flexible, and you won’t need to be asking for names to be released so you can take a name from someone else.

Dinks.2478:

Tumult.2578:

Dinks.2478:

Tumult.2578:

Read it all and my opinion hasn’t changed. I started with 2 years but that’s certainly flexible.
Just out of curiosity, what does everyone think happens to stuff you have in a guild vault after that much time, let alone whether your still a member, or anyone is still a guild member?
At some point, it’s not coming back, it’s starting over. Whatever that point is, is where the names should be freed. I’d imagine Anet could get a pretty good idea of when that point is.

And once again that point should be never. If I want to quit for 3 years and come back I should still have my name. You should have started day one like the rest of us.

Actually started on day 3. What does that have to do with this topic?
If you started on day one then your likely playing multiple characters and have seen how difficult it is to have a name anywhere near what you’d want/like.

This is not the same game we started with. It’s free to play now and a lot more names are needed. I feel entitled too, playing from the start, but I probably should change that because new players have just as much right to the game, and a name, as we do.
You may think a 2 year break is fine. Don’t be surprised if the whole game is gone in 2 years.
I offered my opinion, so did you. Let’s respect them both.

Mine is not an opinion, its a statement of fact. And no, this game is not free to play. The “free to play” model is an open trial.

More importantly, assuming they are free to play then no actually they don’t have as much right to the game as me.

Provide a copy of the company’s written statement that they will never change the current naming policy.
Make up your mind whether the game is free to play or not. lol
Better yet, understand that just because your saying it, doesn’t make it so.