Here is a quote from Aradune:
https://www.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/3639/character-names-important/view/page/4
(10/31/2017)
"I think names are already incredibly important, and becoming moreso day by day. At TwitchCon we had so many people introducing themselves to other fantheons by their in-game name -- it is what it is -- your in-game persona, especially in a social community focused game like Pantheon is *everything*. This is why we continue to head down the road of assigning a first and last name to your character upon creation. Rushing to reserve names, finding out one you've used for years has already been taken, etc. just causes so much unnecessary angst and disappointment.
Just as RL civilization went to two names (and then 3+, I have a first, middle, and last of my birth certificate), so also must virtual civilization.
There is some downside... there could be 2+ other Aradunes running around, but at least you could be Aradune combined with a last name that together makes you unique. Not to mention how this could be tied into the Progeny system, etc.
The concerns I've heard range from 'I don't want to have to think of a second name', to how cool it was to get your last name at 20 in EQ, to UI/Chatting issues.
I don't have much to say in regards to the first. I do agree it was cool to get your last name at 20 in EQ and in fact the idea certainly wasn't mine -- MUDs had been doing that for years, since the late 80s at least. But I think we can offer titles and other ways to recognize and reward.
Lastly the UI issue(s) I think are fairly easily dealt with:
1. If you were logged in and there were, say, 3 Aradunes logged into the same realm as you, and you typed '/tell Aradune Hey man, let's meet up at the bridge', the UI would simply let you know with a pop up list the three people logged in and you would choose one.
2. Example 1 above, however, would happen infrequently, especially if it already happened at least once. We will have an Alias system for this and other reasons (e.g. it's not just to address the more characters logged in with the same first name issue). Essentially you can take anyone from from a Names List (note you'll be able to have multiple lists, say a friends list, an annoying persons list, etc). You can then assign an alias to any of those names. Like I said, this is to address more than just the 2+ names list -- say you have a person you chat with who insists his character's name is some crazy long authentic Sindarin name "Arkininathdunearinatha". I would immediately do /alias Arkininathdunearinatha Arky. Then when I do a '/tell Arky hurry up and meet at the bridge slacker!' it just works. He doesn't know you've renamed him/given him an alias, but your config does, and you no longer need to type or worry about his long name. Same with multiple people with the same first name. '/alias Aradune Mithara Stinky' and now you just use Stinky to refer to him (me?).
3. This greatly helps with realm/server transfers. No more issues there we hope. Will a name, first and last, need to be together unique not just across a realm but across all realms? Likely so, yes.
One thing to keep in mind too is that this is very much a CS issue, moreso than a dev or design issue. Frustrating people by not allowing them to have a name very important to them creates not only an emotional and negative scenario, mad rushes to try reserve names (were we to allow that), but it just gets worse and worse the bigger and more successful the game gets. So the player isn't happy, and then he or she communicates their unhappiness to a CS or GM, taking up valuable resources on our end as well.
I do realize the issue is controversial and trust me, we've given it a LOT of thought. It's something that has plagued CS since the early days of EQ, and it's only grown by orders of magnitude since then with so many more people playing online games where their online persona is very important to them, has a reputation, has sentimental value, etc. In fact, I personally reached out to my friend Rob Pardo (co-creator of WoW, etc.) and he let me know he wished they'd done it this way, that this was a huge issue with WoW, with not only a lot of frustrated people but a huge load on CS. They finally automated it to some degree, but had he a time machine, he'd also approach this issue similarly."
I'm not sure if anything has changed since that post but it's the last official update on naming guidelines as far as I'm aware.
Thanks for repeating Aradune's thoughts - this isn't the thread for giving opinions on how the system should work so I won't.
Almost all of us will agree with some things he said and disagree with others but it is clear the matter has gotten a lot of thought and that there is a non-trivial chance that we will not follow two traditional staples of many (not all) MMOs. Uniqueness being by first name only, and uniqueness being by server.
The cited opinion os now about a year old - it is reasonable to ask if this is still the direction VR is leaning towards.
I agree with Porygon and gertdoggy too. If there are 3 Zazazuu on the server and all of them differ from the surname that’s not uniqueness. Pantheon will be a niche game, so I don't think its necessary forcing people to use surname.
Currently I am not happy about the naming policy.
Zazazuu said:If there are 3 Zazazuu on the server and all of them differ from the surname that’s not uniqueness.
I mean, technically it is. The surname makes it unique.
No one owns a name, anyway. Through sheer coincidence, there will always be people who come up with the same name as you. Including a surname gives everyone the best chance to use the name they want.
I understand the negatives - I have played games that use this system.
Porygon - what is the reason having a surname would bother you so much? Is it the idea of having two names at all? Is it that getting a surname at character creation makes it more ...common ..... than getting it as a reward for some accomplishment later in life? Is it that you do not want people seeing two names floating over your head? Is it something I haven't thought of?
Hypothetically let us assume that you are not forced to select a surname for each character. You are forced to have an account name that is used in whispers from other players if multiple characters have the same first name - as described by Aradune in the link above. The account name is not visible to others unless you choose for it to be shown. I am not sure this can work since how would a passing stranger know what name to use to /whisper you by but nevertheless assume hypothetically that this can be done. Maybe people see the account name if they click on your icon but not otherwise. Now assume that each character has the standard option to select a surname as in most MMOs.
Would this hidden account name make you angry or would you treat it as merely housekeeping trivia and be content with having a first name and a *choice* of whether to have a surname?
Obviously I am trying to turn the discussion to *why* Aradune's thinking (a year ago) would cause issues and what if anything could be done to avoid the issues if the system he posits is fine tuned.
His system has the major advantage that all of us can have the first name we want. Chances are the last name we want too unless we are trying to copy a well known name from a widely known source. Thus Arthur Pendragon might be harder to get than most names, especially if names are unique per game not per server (I am not sure why they should be but doubtlessly Aradune has reasons). This major advantage paired with the major disadvantage that 50 or 100 people might have the same first name. I can easily foresee being in a group with three Ellens or Moiraines or Drizzts and the resulting confusion.
Since I am not tied to any particular name - I have used many scores of names in my MMO career - Aradune's system might cause me more woe than weal but I do see the advantages to it.
SoWplz said: I imagine there is some lvl 5 toon with the name I wanted just sitting there for years.
I too have wondered this at times. Aradune's thoughts seem to cover most cases, though as Dorotea said you might end up with a LOT of people with the same first name.
A lot of the problem is that people take a lot of good names early on and then stop playing.
This is quite normal - but it might be better if any name where the character wasn't even logged on *once* over a one or two year period lost the name.
Note that I am talking about characters wherew the subscription isn't being paid any more. Someone who is still paying shouldn't have a name at risk because they aren't playing.
dorotea said:This is quite normal - but it might be better if any name where the character wasn't even logged on *once* over a one or two year period lost the name.
I have to disagree here. One way to make sure I never come back to a game is to take my characters' names away just because I went inactive for a period. I know Blizzard now does this in WoW, but I really don't like it. I left the game for nearly two and a half expansions before finally returning (luckily most of that time was before they decided to switch to this new name release policy), but if I came back to see that all my names had been reset, I wouldn't be able to hit the unsub button fast enough.
No official update on this yet guys, but this is something we will be looking into more detail closer to release.
zewtastic said:Frankly I'm curious how they are going to pull this one off.
A great many players will freak if they don't get 'their' name, or at least the right to reserve it by paying some premium amount.
All of our pledges from $100 and up have:
This will be managed at a later date, closer to launch.
Kilsin said:No official update on this yet guys, but this is something we will be looking into more detail closer to release.
All of our pledges from $100 and up have:
- Early name reservation
This will be managed at a later date, closer to launch.
EQII had a software disc that released prior to launch that let players create their characters prior to release. I think this only included the look but not the name if memory serves. Be kind of neat if Pantheon had something akin to that as a download but with the name reservation included that you could make and name and then save to the release servers.
It would be nice to choose names from a character creation screen but my guess is it will not happen.
Firstly, name reservation will probably occur a reasonable amount of time before release with a non-trivial chance that details of how the character looks could change before release. I say this purely as a guess but I think it is a *good* guess. A lot of people who made those $100 and up pledges could get rather annoyed if name reservation started right before release and they were on holiday or otherwise unavailable to reserve a name during a three day or one week window. My guess is they will open things up at least a month ahead of time for at least a couple of weeks. As I said pure guess.
Secondly, creating a character is traditionally done for a particular server. VR may not have the final lineup of servers set when they make name reservation available. Granted, they may *not* have character creation occur on any particular server. Since they are leaning towards having unique names for the entire game not by server (as of a while ago this could have changed) they could have a character creation server and then have us choose servers to play on after creation.
Note that for most of us getting a name in early may not matter as much as we may have expected. If only full names are unique and first names may be repeated we will *all* get the first name we want - the only thing we may have to change is the last name. Vice versa of course for someone that cares more about the surname.
Having your account be associated to your character name is a common/modern way to avoid name conflicts. When attempting to /whisper player XYZ, a query is ran against all players named XYZ in the game and a list of account identifiers comes up to show "XYZ@accountname1, XYZ@accountname2, XYZ@accountname3 etc". (along with normal /who information like race/class/level/guild to further differentiate the player you are trying to message and future /whispers are queued to automatically reply to the same "XYZ" character unless explicitly changed. Alternatively this would allow /friends to /whisper @accountname1 and message the player on whatever character they are playing if the player allowed message directly to their account name. The shared account name could be associated to the progeny system for the account's characters and should be different than login/username to avoid accounts from getting compromised.
edit: Login/usernames should not be the same as e-mail addresses either.
Darch said:Having your account be associated to your character name is a common/modern way to avoid name conflicts. When attempting to /whisper player XYZ, a query is ran against all players named XYZ in the game and a list of account identifiers comes up to show "XYZ@accountname1, XYZ@accountname2, XYZ@accountname3 etc". (along with normal /who information like race/class/level/guild to further differentiate the player you are trying to message and future /whispers are queued to automatically reply to the same "XYZ" character unless explicitly changed. Alternatively this would allow /friends to /whisper @accountname1 and message the player on whatever character they are playing if the player allowed message directly to their account name. The shared account name could be associated to the progeny system for the account's characters and should be different than login/username to avoid accounts from getting compromised.
edit: Login/usernames should not be the same as e-mail addresses either.
Please no evident accountname system. Not for the sake of data protection (Account name, login and email can be and SHOULD be separate things) but for the sake of playing withouth beeing stalked at all, even minimal.