Yaz87x said: What's the minimum number of characters, can we use accents for French, Spanish, etc? My name is Yaz in games and it bugs me when I can't get that name, not because someone else has it but because the game doesn't allow for 3 character names
I would love to see the use of accents and other marks used in names. I've seen NPCs with them so why not players? And just to make sure it doesn't get ridiculous and someone names themselves using nothing but hyphens and apostrophies, every name should be reviewed and approved. Yes, that takes time, but it could happen through the website and not when you're on the character screen.
The process could be: You submit the name on the website and get an approval with an approval key. You go to the character select, create the character, enter the name, enter the approval key and off you go.
Start a list of banned names and as people come up with names let users report them if they think they are an issue. At that point they can be reviewed and possible forced to pick a new name. Yaz brings up a good point about the ban list possible being a little overzealous by likely removing all 3 letter names. It makes me wonder if there is a shared ban list for names from other developers. Seems like this is almost reinventing the wheel.
I think it is a little crazy to force users to get preapproval to make a character. I mean if the game only has a few 4,000 players that still could be 20,000 names to review. That is likely a laughably low number too. I hope there will be many more players and that is only 5 characters per player. I know I will be making more than that on day one as I try out all the classes.
Based on the number of pledges coming in daily, the amount of views content creators get, and the number of views the dev streams get I'm guessing the initial number of players is going to be more like 100k.
That's 100k names to approve in the first week of the game releasing. The majority of names will not need to be rejected or renamed. I agree that allowing the player base to simply /report names that are questionalbe would reduce the number of names needing review to like 5k.
I suppose it would be good to put a warning on the character creation screen about it though so someone isn't mad when they are asked to come up with a new name, lol.
Just relying on a simple "restricted name" check and /reports would probably be fine.
I want things to be 'sensible' but how offended can we really get?
There's going to be a certain amount of 'high spirits' that could get the best of any of us.
As Minus asked recently: "Is Spruce Willis" out for a druid?...
The average player must have more than one character. While I am not sure on the exact math, I think it would be fairly safe to put that at an avg of 3 characters per player. I know some will make more then one immediately to reserve names for alts. Anyways if we have 100K player on launch which I agree is not unrealistic it would be a lot more to review in a very short amount of time.
Almost surely they will follow the MMO pattern - at least the pattern as it used to be. On standard ruleset servers any name will go with two major exceptions. One will be names that are considered profane or to be insulting/seriously disturbing to a significant number of players. The other will be a small number of names picked out quite arbitrarily from what the developers consider popular fiction/fantasy/culture/politics etc that the developers do not want us able to use.
On any roleplaying servers these rules will apply with a third rule. Any name too jarring to the lore may get changed if a developer notices it or it gets petitioned.
Ranarius said:it doesnt have to wait till then they could start nowBased on the number of pledges coming in daily, the amount of views content creators get, and the number of views the dev streams get I'm guessing the initial number of players is going to be more like 100k.
That's 100k names to approve in the first week of the game releasing. The majority of names will not need to be rejected or renamed. I agree that allowing the player base to simply /report names that are questionalbe would reduce the number of names needing review to like 5k.
I suppose it would be good to put a warning on the character creation screen about it though so someone isn't mad when they are asked to come up with a new name, lol.
disposalist said:not neccessarily offended people who make impossible to figure out names like IlIIlIIIkillgor (just a example i just dont want a random name generator and nonsense names a random name generator lends to hackers hackers always have random gibberish names and no name generator would help with cutting down on that a littleJust relying on a simple "restricted name" check and /reports would probably be fine.
I want things to be 'sensible' but how offended can we really get?
There's going to be a certain amount of 'high spirits' that could get the best of any of us.
As Minus asked recently: "Is Spruce Willis" out for a druid?...
stellarmind said: pay money to buy another player character name! if account #324 has a character named Thottslayhard and i wanted to buy it, i can send offer(capped at 5 USD)! if the account if inactive the money goes to the company! YEET!
In a game where community and reputation is everything, people can sell their names for 5 dollars. Genious!
I'm hoping 3 letter names are allowed as well as long names--anything that maximizes our choices. I'm also hoping that the fun police don't have too much influence over which names get changed. We need some basic rules, but personally I'd much rather play with Spruce Willis than someone with some awful losing-hand-at-scrabble name that's barely pronounceable. A name like Spruce Willis is clever and shows wit. It's not easy to draw a line, so I would prefer a lighter hand that only steps in when needed since it's far less impactful to see a name you don't like than it is to have your character name deleted. It's impossible to remove every name that every person could possibly be bothered by.
The lighter the name rules in general, the more I would like to see at least one roleplaying server with at least one additional rule that is actually enforced.
No name that is obviously based on the real world, including books and movies or that is self-evidently not a "name".
Saying that a name must be based on lore is an impossible thing to enforce - saying what a name cannot be is far simpler. No Donald Trumps or Hillary Clintons or other names of known people in the real world. No well known book or movie characters. No clear real world references like "Iluvwendys". No class descriptions as distinct from names such as "Sallyspaladin". No set of nonsense letters like XTTYYZZLM.
Custom names should be a premium service awarded to backers who pledged and per character to post launch players willing to pay for something not generated randomly.
This limits the degenerate names being submitted, while also adding revenue to keep the servers running, and giving value to having a unique name.
Counterfleche said:I'm hoping 3 letter names are allowed as well as long names--anything that maximizes our choices. I'm also hoping that the fun police don't have too much influence over which names get changed. We need some basic rules, but personally I'd much rather play with Spruce Willis than someone with some awful losing-hand-at-scrabble name that's barely pronounceable. A name like Spruce Willis is clever and shows wit. It's not easy to draw a line, so I would prefer a lighter hand that only steps in when needed since it's far less impactful to see a name you don't like than it is to have your character name deleted. It's impossible to remove every name that every person could possibly be bothered by.
This sounds about right.
I would find it hard to believe that there wouldn't be RP dedicated servers where naming conventions would be much more strictly enforced.
I also assume, unless I am mistaken, this game will be similar to others in naming conventions. If it is racist, sexist, or otherwise descriminatory or uses innapropriate language, it will probably by forced to change.
Most games I have played DO allow down to 3 characters for names, I have seen some that allow 2 characters which was also pretty nice and there do exist real life names that are only two letters.
I do however dislike numbers and symbols allowed in names, I expect these to be not possible but... some games DO allow them.
A grey area for naming limitations is letters from other languages, such as Ö or Á. I personally am fine with them allowing such characters since again, real names exist in the world using these. The only time I have seen people "against" them are when they are too lazy to be bothered to figure out how to type it and are somehow offended that these players are using them.
Ranarius said:Based on the number of pledges coming in daily, the amount of views content creators get, and the number of views the dev streams get I'm guessing the initial number of players is going to be more like 100k.
That's 100k names to approve in the first week of the game releasing. The majority of names will not need to be rejected or renamed. I agree that allowing the player base to simply /report names that are questionalbe would reduce the number of names needing review to like 5k.
I suppose it would be good to put a warning on the character creation screen about it though so someone isn't mad when they are asked to come up with a new name, lol.
There are pre launch name reservations ... might be a great time to start seeing if names are inappropriate :)
I imagine that 'normal' MMO rules will likely apply.
1. Many names *must* be banned because they are (registered) trade names and can cause VR issues.
NO, I don't like this at all. I find it offensive that a sports shoe company can register as a tradename the name of a Greek Goddess ... something that existed more than a millenia before the sports company ever did! Unfortunately, modern trademark/copyright is a horrible mess and a nuisance and VR, like all games, will have to tow the line.
2. Rude or banned words.
To be honest this only applies to english (or semi-english) languages. I am positive I could name my gnome something meaning "diminuitive genitalia" as long as I used a non-english language. The name parser will not pick it up, and nor will any of the CS team unless they *happen* to be familiar with that particular language. The rest of us will be strictly hemmed in by a version of political correctness as well as an extensive list of swear words.
3. Accented characters - graves, acutes, sedillas, umlauts etc
These will be supremely difficult to entertain.
I would love to be able to use an old english spelling (with an inherited norse 'ae' for example) but the problem is simple ... how does somebody inviting me to a group type in my name? How do they type in c-sedilla without having to code an extensive UI to cater for this? If I want "Nina" but pronounced 'nin-yah' then I need a tilde on the second n ... otherwise how do I differentiate between 'Nina' = 'Nee-nah' vs 'Nina' = 'Nin-yah' ? So when somebody just sees me passing by and quickly types "/tell Nina" because they could not see the tilde as I ran past, will they be /tell'ing another person? This will be tricky to have - and trickier to have done properly.
4. 2-3 letter names
Typically, games avoid allowing 2-3 letter names. AFAIK this is based on their being few names that need a 2-3 letter representation and it being a useful condition (4+ letters) to force players to generate longer, unique names. I don't see why that cannot have them, though.
5. Reserved names
VR will have a dictionary of reserved names which cannot be used. These usually include names from popular mythology, movies and books. No 'Bilbo' for you, Mr. Halfling. Thsi will usually also include a list of all in-game NPCs and names from game Lore.
6. Hyphens, spaces, apostrophes.
Many games allow these - though usually with one proviso. If the method for storing player names uses spaces for a delimiter (separator) then the space becomes a reserved word (see above). Hyphens (dashes) and apostrophes tend to less of a problem since they dont require an extended key-set and can be typed directly from the keyboard. However, these two are heavily abused in many games that do not allow spaces. eg "D'unkin-D'onuts".
PS Spaces are often not allowed because there is a lot more coding needed to make sure it works correctly. Typically, it is not something you can easily add to later.
AFAIK, VR have not (definitively) indicated whether it is the first name or surname that must be unique. I seem to recall a statement by Joppa indicating it would be 'first name', but I seem to have misplaced the evidence.
PS I would like there to be a flag on all new names created: "checked/unchecked". There is no need to manually check every name, but those that get reported (people will do this - it is human nature) and *do* get checked can have the flag changed to 'checked'. Later, over time, names can be sifted. Personally, I would not bother to validate any until they get to at least level 10+ (at which point they must pay subscription, since the 'trial period' is over). If, like EQ1, surnames are only gained at a later point (eg in EQ1 you gained a surname at level 20) then the first name can be validated when the surname is also being validated.
TLDR: No, we don't want "Gnomey McGnome-Face"
Evoras.
No Not many Some Gnomes were harmed in the making of this post.
Quseio2017 said: personally i wish that they would do like eq did at first require names to be verifyed by someone and not allow countless misspellings of famous movie names and random text names liukle JYTKHLITGO
So, no Rangers named Stryder or Legoass? I have to say, I'll be let down if I can't play my Female Elf Druid, XxPU55YSL4YER6969xX.
