Character Name Change Service

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Doing so has like a 90 day wait time, what they're talking about would be instantaneous

I didn't see anything specifying it had to be instantly repeatable with no wait time. Heck does it need to be repeatable at all? Once per character only even with a significant fee would probably please everyone asking for it.

[LunaticVoice]

I didn't see anything specifying it had to be instantly repeatable with no wait time. Heck does it need to be repeatable at all? Once per character only even with a significant fee would probably please everyone asking for it.

I wouldn't mind a limit of once every 90 days or even once a year with a fee, but I'd never pay more than $15 for it which is already a ludicrously high fee for such a simple service. I only use that as a jumping off point because other MMOs charge a fee for it around that range. Many good arguments have been made and there's really no point in not implementing a Name Change Service because people already do it indirectly with server switches. I think it would please a lot of long-time players who thought a name like "Xsefirothx" or something was cool when they were in high school but want a respectable name for their beloved character 9 years later.

[Ashiee]

There is absolutely no reason why there should not be some type of name change service that you can pay for. Unless it costs SE a ton of money to implement (which I doubt, I am pretty sure they would make a decent chunk of cash out of having a service such as this) it seems like a win/win situation for everyone, SE makes a profit, while people who want a to have a name change have the ability to do so.

People worried about people griefing, I have bad news for you, people who want to grief will find ways of doing it no matter what. With the correct restrictions to a name changing service, such as a high price point, I would say $15 - $25, and a limit to how often you can change your name, such as every 3 -6 months, a name change service would provide people who want to change their name the option to change their name, while not giving griefers much more additional ability to grief then they already can. Back before server transfers were put in place, the same issue came up of how much people would abuse the system, but I’m sure the majority of people would rather have server transfers as an option then not have it as an option. The same is true with this, I’m sure it would do way more good than harm.

At least for me, this service would have been a godsend if it was available. I had my account hacked 3 years ago, and someone on my server was taking the names of people that got hacked when people were having rollbacks/were transferred over to another server and I was one of those people who lost their name. I was able to acquire the name back on a mule after a year or so, but I had no way to change it back. I called a GM five times (at least) trying to have my name changed, yet I was unable to get my name back. Only after these most recent server merger and people being able to change was I able to argue my case with two GM’s for an hour (and again, thank you for being understanding GM Rahlk and GM Enieralera) that I was finally able to change my name. However I could have bypassed all of this if there was a name change service.

Before being able to get my name changed, I considered other options, paying 25$ and go to another server for 3 months, and then pay another $25 dollars to go back, I also considered deleting my character, and calling up SE and telling them it was a mistake and have it restored. Honestly both of those ways are pretty horrible, and extremely inefficient for a name change. I was seriously considering transfer servers for a name change, but I never wanted to leave the server I was on for three months. I was also not willing to risk character deletion due to the fact I had a roll back (I probably would have risked it otherwise).

And I know that more legitimate players that do not want to grief would like this service also. I had two people /tell me asking me how I was able to change my name after I did, and I know from the past 3 or 4 people who have called up GM’s because they wanted to change their names, not for malicious purposes, but just because they were tired of the name they picked years and years ago.

TLTR version:
There is no reason why there should not be a name change service with the right restrictions in place, SE profits, customers profit, the current name change policy is outdated and a pain in the butt.

(also sorry for some messed up spelling/grammar, I was writing this in the middle of a computer science lecture and was trying to pay attention to that to :P)