With all the Strife s walking around people must think they are decaboxing
Anyway if the lodestone listed all the previous names and servers a player used it could avoid the issues raised above.
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Besides RMT having a field day with this, another important thing is accountability. If you run off with mats you get a bat reputation. Also for the lvl 40sum genius on my server named "Period Blood" ..deal with it.
Again, a server transfer would do the same thing as a name change here, even more so. Are you also against server transfers?
Also do you really think RMT is going to pay for a name change? They pay as little as they can, they steal account and CC info and such when attempting to do their RMT stuff. They aren't just going to be randomly changing their names for x dollars a pop.
Not everyone is good at coming up with names, or are rushing to play with their friends so they just put whatever. I hated my old FFXI character's name. After I had decided to come back and make a new character after "quitting" for a few months, I spent the next 2 days at work coming up with names. Good names, names I would be proud of. Every single one was taken. I was dumbfounded, none were ripoff style names. I hit random and it just produced faceroll garbage. So I just put in the first thing that came to mind and went with that. Now down the line I was able to come up with a decent non-taken name that I managed to snag after 2 server hops(One away because all my friends had quit playing, and one when they came back 6 months later). But even after spending 6 months off the server, people still knew who I was when I came back by one mention of my old name, which I was still called and am still called today. So your not going to be able to escape bad reps as easy as you think.
Same thing happened here to a bit. I wasn't sure if I wanted to play a Roegadyn or a Miqo'te, but I went with a Miqo'te, because that's what I played in 1.0, and I was a Mithra in XI. So I tried to come up with names. But I suck hardcore at it. I even asked my favorite author if he would give me a character name, he said no of course but seemed amused I asked. So after about a week of off and on coming up with names, I had a nice list of first names and a nice list of last names and none of them went well with each other. So when the game came live, I wanted to play with my friends... hit random, didn't hate the name, so I went with that. I liked the character fine, just wished I would have gone with a Roegadyn instead, and once I found out I would be getting 2 potions of remaking awesomeness, I took the plunge. I couldn't really start over, as I am playing with friends and can't really ask them to wait on me to catch back up.
And for the server transfer, even though you said you don't like it you seem to be missing the point I'm trying to make on it. It's already a thing, it's coming. People will be able to escape their bad raps, which i personally think you are over-blowing a tad, with this service. So why not go ahead and add something in to make other people happy, even if a small few might use it to pull a fast one instead of using a server transfer to the same effect?
Bottom line this is a game, meant to be enjoyed. I feel like I could enjoy my game better, without causing anyone any harm, if their was a name change service added to the game.
Not going to continue the numbered list chain of quotes. I do understand your point that they really could just server transfer and force a name change that way. I understand that is a necessary evil and cannot be avoided, however this will still make it more of a sacrifice for most of the first 2 of my original points because a good portion of these people will bare with it rather than leave all their friends behind. As for second chances and people can change I wholeheartedly agree and what a better way to change your attitude then to roll a new character or transfer to a new server. Name changes would just enable people to do whatever they want, then change their name every 3 months or whatever the timer is. As for the third point we can't stop everything bad from happening but if it becomes a real problem then SE can hold open transfer periods where we can transfer to new servers but only during specified times. This would let people transfer to servers to meet up with RL friends and whatnot but prevent people from freely transferring changing their name and getting away with whatever dastardly crimes they committed whenever they want.
The bottom line is bad decisions do have consequences, and us giving these people more options to avoid karma slapping them in the face is just us supporting these peoples behavior. I understand it is a game but people come to this game for enjoyment but it is hard to escape and enjoy yourself when you have to deal toxic players. Enabling them to continue to act like that is just asking for more to follow along and I'd rather repair the damage then to further destroy this community. SE clearly doesn't care about the major issue people are having with giefers and they are overwhelmed with the number of RMTs we are plagued with so unfortunately we as a community need to help karma along with our own brand of justice, and that isn't possible if we beg SE to enable offenders to avoid scrutiny by disappearing with a name change.
I'm not saying no never to name changes period but I am saying no here and now because I know SE wont implement a system to prevent toxic players from escaping community justice while allowing others to simply change their names because Bubba McMuscles isn't a good name for a character gender/race changing to a female lalafell or a kid finally passes the pre-pubescent stages and realizes that his character CloudXXX StrifeX is just the same as a toddler running around in an ironman mask and wants to pick an actual personal unique name now that his brain isn't running off of duplicating observed content.