Names of Merged Characters "Second Chance"

[HFX7686]

We recently had to rename three characters and it was a pretty awful ordeal of trying to find something that wasn't already taken. We had to eventually resort to misspelled versions of our old names because everything we could think of was being used. And we hate our new names.

I spoke to a SGM (Melodicya) today with the hopes of getting a second rename chance and she told me that it wasn't possible at the present time but the name change of merged characters might be reviewed and the policy changed in the future so these people get a "second chance".

I'd really like to see it so characters that haven't been used on a server for 6 or more months have their names temporarily disabled so people who had their names forcibly changed because of an old character sitting in the data could change back to their original names.

Also, characters who are under level 5 should have their names temporarily disabled in case they are the names of people who merged over.

Perhaps a grace period of one month to allow people the time to change their names back.

Finally, obviously, new character creation on these servers would have to be held over for the same period of time.

Thank you very much.

[Dragen]

I lost 2 names last year when Midgardsormr merged with Quetzacoatl. One of them I'd had for 7 years. The fairest thing would be to compare the date of creation times for two characters named the same and force the newer creation to change, but SE doesn't care about fairness. BTW, your characters date of creation IS already stored in their information.

[Romanova]

The fairest thing would be to compare the date of creation times for two characters named the same and force the newer creation to change, but SE doesn't care about fairness.

I don't really consider that fair at all unless they were to take playtime into account.

If someone happen to have the name first but has a game time of like a year isn't fair to someone who has been consistently playing for 5+ years.

Not only that, mules could get first priority over actually played characters just because the mule happened to be created first.

[Mirage]

I think it would be fair to let people take usernames of characters whose content IDs haven't been active in several years.

[Romanova]

I think it would be fair to let people take usernames of characters whose content IDs haven't been active in several years.

This is actually what Blizzard does with WoW. If you transfer your character and the name is taken you can put in a request to get your old name back. If the "taken" name has been inactive for over, I believe, 6 months they will instead give the name to you.

A few of my friends have done that in the past.

I would definitely say that's probably the best option.

[Moomba]

I feel your pain. Everyday since the Midgard > Quetz server merge, I've been trying to create an account with my Midgard name, and not once has it opened up and not once has it shown up when I do a /sea all Moomba. Really wish they would just deactivate unused accounts, really miss my old name.

[Vandalhart]

I support this idea. People who haven't played for 6 months or so shouldn't be able to reserve their names in a situation like this. I realise that I may have to live with my current renamed character, but I don't see a problem with trying to get my old one back.

[Zaknafein]

Yeah lost my name I had from ps2 release last night to an account that hasn't been active since march 08'. That is unacceptable, and something needs to be done about it. The only way to rule fairly on these matters would be in cases such as this where the destination world's name has been inactive for a certain period of time. If it had been someone who was currently playing it would have been understandable. That however is not the case.

When all that billing crap was going down, and I was on the phone with the customer support I asked about this. I explained the situation, and that the world I was headed to had an account with the same name. The tech assured me that if it had been inactive for that length of time I had nothing to worry about. Famous last words....

[Maacha]

My husband lost his character name in the merge from Ramuh to Bahamut, the character who had his name hadn't any transactions on FFXIAH since 2007 >.> Perhaps there would be a way for names that are duplicated to go to the first account that is logged in after the merge, so that only active accounts get priority... Might be a bit difficult to implement though. Really, I think that anyone who transfers in to a server should get a chance to appeal to get priority on a name if the other person with that name has been inactive for a long enough time, be it banned, someone's mule, or simply deactivated.

[Wenceslao]

That issue is a crap, i lost 3 names i got 6yrs ago ¬¬, hate it....