dorotea said:((If there are multiple players "active" with the same name. The name should go to the person who has the most /played time. I dont think creation date should matter.))
Losing a name will be less painful if the person losing it believes the system under which they lost it was both logical and fair. And not subject to manipulation. I believe this proposal fails that test.
1. Time /played can be manipulated. If there is a way of doing so, some players will leave characters in the world afk overnight just to build up credit for a potential future merger. Why not?
2. Time /played is not the traditional test used, and players tend to assume that a test that they have seen used repeatedly in other games is more fair and reasonable than something unusual.
3. First come first served is a traditional test and people are conditioned to thinking of it as reasonable. Some exceptions such as for an old character that hasn't been played in a long time are viewed as reasonable, but not losing a name to a character created 3 years after yours and then played endlessly by a "no lifer". Or, worse, left afk for the month preceding the merger in order to ninja a name.
Given a choice I would prefer a test based on combined adventure and crafting levels to one based on time /played. But date of creation with reasonable exceptions has proven to be workable and accepted by most players.
So your arguement, is that people will manipulate the system by leaving their characters logged in, JUST INCASE theres a server merger.. lol
In your example, if I create a main character on day 2 named John, and amass a huge /played over the years. I could potentially lose my name to someones alt who isnt even max level just because they created it on day 1.
I like the idea of combined crafting and adventuring levels. But that's similar to /played as the longer you play, the more likely you are to max your trades and your adventuring.
First come first serve is antiquated. And is only used because it was probably the only option available in the beginning.
Porygon we can agree to disagree. Hopefully this will be irrelevant since we are discussing mergers not initial name reservations and hopefully mergers will not occur for many years. And if the full name is unique not just the first name there will be far fewer duplications.
But, yes, people will try and game any system. I typically do not leave a character on for long periods afk - I want /played to be an accurate reflection of time actually spent playing the character. But if /played might dicate who keeps a name in a year or two or five I might leave the character afk a lot more. Not for full nights or days - I don't care enough about names - but more than I do today. But more important than what I do - the person that loses a name may always suspect that he or she lost it to someone gaming /played and feel a lot more bitter over the loss.
I do not consider first come first serve as antiquated at all. Many many things in our society where there are limited resources are determined this way, and if it later proves that they were not people scream "foul" and there are even criminal investigations (take the sale of seats for plays or shows for example). Other systems are also used, of course, such as frequent customers getting benefits in buying airline tickets or boarding priority - but first come first served is far from an outdated concept.
dorotea said:Bazgrim is, of course, correct and so this issue may never arise. But it is always possible that VR will go a different route and so this topic may yet prove to be relevant. As with many of us I have been faced with this issue many times over the years and have developed some firm opinions.
1. In the case of a voluntary transfer the person transferring should *never* be able to take a name away from someone on the destination server. Regardless of how long the person transferring has had the name. Even if the character on the destination server was just created.
2. In the case of a merger, whoever had the name first should keep it. Simple and fair. But if a character has not been played for a long period of time - maybe a year - the name should be takeable. If, and only if, the player is given a significant amount of time to reactivate the name by playing the character. Thus if a merger is announced players should be told at least a month in advance that priority goes to the character first created but not if the character has never been played over the 12 months preceeding the merger.
3. If a server is elminated and transfers to a surviving server are allowed this should be treated the same as a merger. Bad enough to lose one's home of many years - it is infuriating to have every character on every other server given priority of name because the developers do not call it a merger - even though it is just as involuntary as a merger.
4. Pledge status should not matter except maybe as a tie-breaker. If two characters are created on the first day of the game I can see using pledge status to overide the fact that one was created at 9AM and the other at 2PM. But as a pledger my 2 year old character should not be able to take the name from an equally active five year old character. People foam at the mouth at the phrase "pay to win". Pay to name will not be any more popular.
#2 - I don't recall the game, but you could look up characters and see their last log on date on some webpage (Might have been DAoC?). Anyway, a bunch of my friends moved to a new server for a reason I don't recall, but when I tried to create my character, the name was taken, upon looking up the namem I could see that person had not logged in for over 18 months, so I petitioned and was still turned down.
It was a bummer, but in the end, it forceed me to come up with several usable names, that have since become my norm as I have encountered similar issues in other games as time has gone on and the player base has grown.
Any person not active for 12 months name should be removed and players be allowed to take it. Players should not be able to just get 20 great names and never be active on them some kind of limit should exist.
Im not sure how much realm transfer will happen to be a issue of multiple on the same realm surnames would reduce this issue.
I want Surnames.
Diana Dragonbane
Really is better then being named Diana71042 like in other mmos.
Easy solution, just create characters on each server with the names you want. When your main server gets merged, delete the old alts and keep ya names.
Honestly though what we should do is have unique family names across all servers and let players have whatever first name they want. I like the idea of having all characters I make under the same family name anyways, it makes it easy for people to recognize me when I switch between characters. Also personally I have no issue with everyone connecting all my characters because I have never had to hide out on an alt because I dirt bagged my reputation. I feel that most of the time the game systems protect bad players because it’s too easy to wash off your reputation by skipping to a new character.
Kass said:As far as having unique first/last name across all shards, that seems like a great way to do it. The only downside being when I try to /whisper /tell /? someone and I have to try to spell out 19 characters of a first and last name - with accent marks! That won't be fun.
From Aradune:
"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?)."
(Source: https://www.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/3639/character-names-important/view/page/4 )
Kass said: Fair points. The order of merit for pledgers reserving names is relevant. As far as people grabbing streamers names, that's fair game in my opinion. All major streamers I watch would just choose a different name and move on with their business... character names would not effect viewership imo, but maybe I'm wrong. There isn't really a fair way to prevent it even if you wanted to. If I steal Bazgrim name or something, he can just add a 'm' and go about his business. His views will be unaffected. Meanwhile I'll be known as a douche on the server.
I would be a little concerned that if you didn't like me, you would make that character as a throwaway and then go around the server being a total annoyance, and trying to convince people that you were me. While unlikely, that could potentially affect my reputation to a degree and therefore my views.
Melamber said:Honestly though what we should do is have unique family names across all servers and let players have whatever first name they want. I like the idea of having all characters I make under the same family name anyways, it makes it easy for people to recognize me when I switch between characters. Also personally I have no issue with everyone connecting all my characters because I have never had to hide out on an alt because I dirt bagged my reputation. I feel that most of the time the game systems protect bad players because it’s too easy to wash off your reputation by skipping to a new character.
No thanks. I'd rather just be able to choose first name/last name individually for each character. My characters are separate entities and rarely part of the same "family".
Bazgrim said:Kass said: Fair points. The order of merit for pledgers reserving names is relevant. As far as people grabbing streamers names, that's fair game in my opinion. All major streamers I watch would just choose a different name and move on with their business... character names would not effect viewership imo, but maybe I'm wrong. There isn't really a fair way to prevent it even if you wanted to. If I steal Bazgrim name or something, he can just add a 'm' and go about his business. His views will be unaffected. Meanwhile I'll be known as a douche on the server.I would be a little concerned that if you didn't like me, you would make that character as a throwaway and then go around the server being a total annoyance, and trying to convince people that you were me. While unlikely, that could potentially affect my reputation to a degree and therefore my views.
Bazgrim,
Thanks for the source on the alias system. Appreciate it.
For you guys/gals who are helping create content and promote the game, I hope that VR ensures that your brand is protected from something this trivial. You would have earned that at the very least from them.
That being said, I think you get into a slippery slope when you start granting streamers priority to take a name over a player who already has it, even if it's a name they commonly use on other games. Also, maybe I would just want to have your name because I admire you and I think it's cool. Maybe I would never claim to be you, but only a fan. What if I did the same for another streamer that doesn't play the game... when he picks up the game in 6 months, does he get to debo me out of the name? Correct me if I'm wrong, but no video game screen names are copywrited by streamers are they? Is that even a thing?
Anyways, neither here nor there, because I would never take a streamers name. I'm an adult.
Keep doing great things for Pantheon, Bazgrim. Cheers!
I definitely agree that someone shouldn't get any priority to either getting a name in the first place or keeping the name because they do a stream.
Where do you draw the line? Anyone can do a stream. Does VR monitor every stream (millions of them) and set rules for how many people need to actually look at the streams for them to get special naming treatment? What about someone that doesn't stream but writes articels for gaming magizines? You know - old style that are actually printed on paper. What if someone is a columnist for a gaming column on line. There are many countries with many languages does VR hire a team of linguists to follow everything written or streamed relating to gaming anywhere in the world?
Let us keep it simple - whoever reserves a name first gets it. Or whoever pledged the most. Or whoever pledged first. Or whatever the system is that they set up. With no regard to any outside activities. Ditto for keeping the name down the road if there are mergers.
Naunet said:Melamber said:Honestly though what we should do is have unique family names across all servers and let players have whatever first name they want. I like the idea of having all characters I make under the same family name anyways, it makes it easy for people to recognize me when I switch between characters. Also personally I have no issue with everyone connecting all my characters because I have never had to hide out on an alt because I dirt bagged my reputation. I feel that most of the time the game systems protect bad players because it’s too easy to wash off your reputation by skipping to a new character.No thanks. I'd rather just be able to choose first name/last name individually for each character. My characters are separate entities and rarely part of the same "family".
While i dont share the same RP mentality as you ;) I also do not want last name tied to any uniqueness. If possible I would prefer not to have a last name at all. If theres 7 different "Pory"s... how do you determine who's who if noone has last names?
Surnames should be a small bonus to your character, nothing to do with his/her unique name. Besides in my experience the only people that actually create a REAL surname are RPers. Everyone else just uses them to try and be funny.