Offer a name change feature for FFXI SE.

[FrankReynolds]

Really? Are people really gonna claim that naming a character is this important? Guess what! It's a game. Most of you people claiming this are the ones who really should be considering changing theirs. Come up with a better reason.

[Serei]

i think one thing i would like to see.. would be the abilty to give your charcter a last name.. if i remember right some of the other MMO's out there allowed that. (everquest, lineage, guild wars..i think.. D.o.C) just to name a few..

[Soranika]

You mean like FFXIV has done as well? Something or another about PS2 limitations or spaghetti coding or something like that deters from implementing a first and last name.

[Greatguardian]

Remembering two names is hard. It multiplies the effort you have to do to keep names straight by a factor of 4 (inb4 someone herps and thinks it's a factor of 2).

Yes. I'm lazy. I know a lot of people. Screw last names. It also makes sending tells a royal pain in the ass.

[thinktank909]

The feature should be offered, but you should have a perma title for 30 days stating Formerly Known as FomerPlayer. So people cant easily escape griefing or other stuff like that.

[Dragoy]

i think one thing i would like to see.. would be the abilty to give your charcter a last name.. if i remember right some of the other MMO's out there allowed that. (everquest, lineage, guild wars..i think.. D.o.C) just to name a few..

I imagine they might have to do a lot of (too much) work to allow spaces in names. I generally support even 3 part names, but as they did with XIV, they force players into having 2 part names, and that is not good either. Similarly, even there I think it may be a result of simply bad design, so they will not be able to change it, unless they re-do that part of the game on the way to 2.0 release as well.

Here is a thread about it in the XIV forum.


As for the topic, I would still support the feature. Obviously there should be a limit as to how often one can change a name as has been mentioned I think, and I don't see how people could abuse it, really, as long as certain counter-measures including the above would be taken.

I was/am part of a game that introduced such a feature quite late in the game, it's a bit older than FFXI, but it happened around the same age. Sure it was a bit silly at first, but no one thinks anything of it anymore. Perhaps the only big difference to this game is that the game offers a lot more what comes to the community in the official web-site. You can search for characters and view their old names (for a certain amount of time) on that page, among other information.

They did something like that with FFXIV (the lodestone), but FFXI certainly lacks this feature. But as mentioned, if the character stays in your blacklist, it would be rather obvious it's an 'evil-doer', and those who care will likely know who it is if one does not remember the original name anymore.

Et cetera.

[Nidhogg]

Deactivate your account before the start of the next month, wait 7 days, purchase a new ID if you do not have a mule character, name it your main characters name, then reactivate your main character and whalla you can change your main characters name.

[Dragoy]

Deactivate your account before the start of the next month, wait 7 days, purchase a new ID if you do not have a mule character, name it your main characters name, then reactivate your main character and whalla you can change your main characters name.

Might work a bit differently now, since you don't pay for each month in advance the way we used to. ^^;

Moreover, I did try to test due to another reason, to name a new character with a name that a friend has: It's not available even though the account is inactive, and has been for several months. I think I remember this way working at some point, though. Is it treated differently if the name is tied to the same account already? I do doubt it.

I do think a bit that they should have just had the names restricted server-wide, that way merging them would have never had any issues like that. On the other hand, though, since FFXI only allows one part names, it would have been quite restrictive, so I'm not sure if I would have gone with server-wide either after all.

But I digress.
I just wanted to say that I have my doubts on simply de-activating the content ID, as well as from when it really is considered inactive (would likely depend on the payment method, if it's Crystanonsense or the other, too).


Blubb.

[Juri_Licious]

Deactivate your account before the start of the next month, wait 7 days, purchase a new ID if you do not have a mule character, name it your main characters name, then reactivate your main character and whalla you can change your main characters name.

I wonder how this would work with the current setup? How are you able to create a character with the same name if it exists?

[svengalis]

Deactivate your account before the start of the next month, wait 7 days, purchase a new ID if you do not have a mule character, name it your main characters name, then reactivate your main character and whalla you can change your main characters name.

Gonna try this, pretty sure it does not work though.