Guild Wars 2

Gaile Gray.6028:

Hey there. I’m sorry that you don’t care for your display name, and I can understand that you would like to change it. Unfortunately, we don’t have an option to change display names right now, even in exchange for those delicious crispy pound notes you so kindly offer.

It’s possible that we may offer a display name change option in the future, but I am not sure that this feature is on the to-do list, and I cannot give any sort of timeframe for its possible implementation. (If it did come — and again I’m not sure it ever will — it’s not coming soon, that’s for sure.)

I’ve seen countless requests for this feature (and voiced my own which basically counters any reason against it). Why do you hate money so much?

I’m willing to pay somewhere in the realm of $15 USD for a namechange, but I’m not paying for a new game. I contacted support given they can change names given a valid reason, but apparently “someone else uses this name very publicly, it isn’t me, and the things they do under it aren’t me” isn’t enough.

Gaile Gray.6028:

I do want to mention that for the most part, all that someone sees in the game is your character name, and your display name here on the forums shouldn’t trouble you too much.

Except for nearly any instance where one character might contact another, such as adding to friends list.

Gaile Gray.6028:

Thanks for understanding.

Most of us actually aren’t understanding about this, because time and again any defense of not providing the facility offered by any staff member is quickly dismantled using logic and reasoning.

The feature isn’t hard to implement. There’s proof that it’s already actually in place, just isn’t user-facing. It’s not even a matter of ‘going on the to-do list’.

I can only assume that a lot of people posting support in one thread will hopefully increase the chance that ArenaNet will actually consider such a fundamental feature of any multiplayer game.

Also voicing my strong support for this feature, and I very much agree with the post above me. I don’t actually play Guild Wars 2 right now. The thing that stirred that originally was the fact that my display name is what people see when they add me to their friends list, and it’s something that I can’t change. Being an Internet service, the ability to change your display name should be almost staple.

The arguments against it that I’ve heard from pretty much every MMO company prior boil down to “preventing abuse”. Unfortunately, globally preventing users from changing their display name (something that represents them, yes?) is not a method of preventing abuse, which would be cut down if changing your display name was a one/two/three time thing, or a paid service.

While you do change the display names of some players when they do not fit in with the naming policy, a simple restriction on usable words would cut down at least half of the problems. The remaining percentage of abusive players could be dealt with using the current system.