People taking character names with no intention of using

Say for example's sake you have a name you would like to name your character but cannot because someone who has another character max level has taken it and used it for a level 1 alt and has never used it since their login to that character. Should there be a way for a player to submit a ticket in to get that name so they can actually use it or is it okay that people can essentially just take a name and not level it a single time & not have anything but the starter gear on it? Your thoughts?


Personally, I think it's something that should be in the game but implemented in a specific way. If the account who has a chosen name is emailed and told they have a specific name and in say 30 days if nothing is done with it i.e getting to level 2+ the character name will be taken and they'll be given a chance to rename.

They already take my house, they aren't taking my name.

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Originally Posted by KaiusCastell

Say for example's sake you have a name you would like to name your character but cannot because someone who has another character max level has taken it and used it for a level 1 alt and has never used it since their login to that character. Should there be a way for a player to submit a ticket in to get that name so they can actually use it or is it okay that people can essentially just take a name and not level it a single time & not have anything but the starter gear on it? Your thoughts?


Personally, I think it's something that should be in the game but implemented in a specific way. If the account who has a chosen name is emailed and told they have a specific name and in say 30 days if nothing is done with it i.e getting to level 2+ the character name will be taken and they'll be given a chance to rename.

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First come first served.
Square Enix cant know when that person will play that character. It could be never, but it could also be in 3days time. They cant just delete names willy nilly because they havent been used in a few days. Imagine how you'd feel if you took an extended break only to come back and find your character has to be renamed because you didnt play for a while. What if you had an emotional attachment to that name and now its gone forever? Or what if ALL of your friends knew you as 'X' name and now its been deleted and reused by someone else and they are using it in a way that makes you or your friends feel angry or betrayed somehow?
Unless the name goes against the TOS, it can not and should not be removed/deleted.
You must either get to it first, or take the name on another server.

I actually had a character in Final Fantasy 11 that had to be renamed during a huge server merger back in the day. The server my character was being forced onto already had a character by the same name and I was forced to change my character's name. Losing that name was a huge blow and most of my friends in game didnt recognize me after the merger and it was a real pain in the arse. So the long and short of it in my opinion, is that they should never delete character names for the purpose of reuse just because they havent been used in a while. The above example is just one reason why that would suck.

For FF14, I completely agree that if a character hasn't been logged into for say... 60 days, then the name should be up for grabs.

Normally I don't agree with that on other MMOs, because in most other MMOs you only have 1 class per character. So I would often claim names for several characters because I knew I would play other classes.

But since we can do all jobs with 1 character in FF14, I can't see any reason to have alts you don't touch just to have names claimed. It's just selfish at that point. If you play the alts, that's a different story.

Oh well I guess it's time to be original.

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Originally Posted by KaiusCastell

Say for example's sake you have a name you would like to name your character but cannot because someone who has another character max level has taken it and used it for a level 1 alt and has never used it since their login to that character. Should there be a way for a player to submit a ticket in to get that name so they can actually use it or is it okay that people can essentially just take a name and not level it a single time & not have anything but the starter gear on it? Your thoughts?


Personally, I think it's something that should be in the game but implemented in a specific way. If the account who has a chosen name is emailed and told they have a specific name and in say 30 days if nothing is done with it i.e getting to level 2+ the character name will be taken and they'll be given a chance to rename.

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If a name is taken, take another one because someone was there first no matter if that character is level 1 or not.

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Originally Posted by CorbinDallas

They already take my house, they aren't taking my name.

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But did they take your multi-pass?

A lot of MMOs do change character names if they are inactive for a certain amount of time and tack a garbage string to the end. (Squall_39uwe for example.) The next time you log in, it prompts you to change it. The difference between them and FFXIV is they don't have a last name system. It's much easier to have a name you like on XIV because of this and I think that's a fair trade. I'd rather know my character will keep his name without having to worry about logging in.

A great idea to drive players away.

Seriously just get a little more creative. You have a first and last name to work with. For the most part you'll be known by your first name, not too hard to keep that and come up with a different last name.

I have more of a problem with the idea of putting a gun to peoples head than I have with someone holding an alt with a name that YOU think you have anymore right to claim.

When do we start taking names from general characters because their player hasnt logged in for a certain period of time?

Come up with a different, most likely less generic name for your character.

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Originally Posted by Enla

But did they take your multi-pass?

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Didn't we just let a Corbin Dallas through?

Agree with most of the responses here. This wouldn't be a good idea. Aside from the fact that the person creating their character has no more right to a name than the one who created their character first, it really is easy to just slightly alter the name to get what you want or even to create an entirely new character.

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Originally Posted by Kaedan

For FF14, I completely agree that if a character hasn't been logged into for say... 60 days, then the name should be up for grabs.

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60 days? That's kind of draconian O-o

I agree that there are a lot of useless characters that were created and never played again but I don't like the idea of them being erased just to have their names freed!...


The housing auto-demolition timer already puts a lot of stress on players like myself and I wouldn't like to have more pressure to play just to keep alt characters alive, that'd be beyond abusive!...

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Originally Posted by Dualgunner

60 days? That's kind of draconian O-o

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Nah that's too long.
If you're unsubbed for two weeks your character should be deleted.

Honestly yeah, It's pretty annoying to be locked out of a name you want because someone took it and then hasn't touched the game since 2.0 launch. Names have always been important when I make characters so I can understand the OP to an extent.

But personally I've almost only had this issue when I was doing gimmick or cosplay characters, all of my other names have been unique enough to not be taken.

I can't speak for other peoples naming choices, but I feel like there's enough flexibility in the first and last name system for people to come up with good combos.
But I wouldn't mind at all if they put a system in place for people to request unused names. I would suggest something like; an account not logging in or not having a sub for maybe 6 or so months could justify the names being opened up upon request. It would have to be account log in checks cause there's plenty of people with alts and I think it would be a bit silly to expect them to log into EACH alt just to keep their names. And it would have to be a pretty long stretch of time to account for people just leaving between major patches, raid tiers and expansions.

But either way, people will be upset and annoyed no matter what changes. Someone who cares about their name could lose it because they couldn't play, and someone who wants a specific name can't have it because someone with no plans on ever playing has it locked away.
It sucks, but there's no real easy fix, and sometimes you'll just have to accept you need to try finding a clever work around to find a name you enjoy

Have to disagree. While my name is unique (in fact, I'm the only person in the entire game playing a character with the first name "Nomfur", other characters with it being my alts), I can see where people are coming from. I'm probably going to erase those alts at some point, but it should be my choice to make.

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Originally Posted by Seraphor

Nah that's too long.
If you're unsubbed for two weeks your character should be deleted.

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Two weeks is a bit lenient

Sub drops account goes poof.

Pick something other than, "Kain", "Highwind" and, "Sephiroth" and you should be fine.

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Originally Posted by Drakkaelus

Pick something other than, "Kain", "Highwind" and, "Sephiroth" and you should be fine.

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Kain'high Wind'sephiroth?

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Originally Posted by Dualgunner

Two weeks is a bit lenient

Sub drops account goes poof.

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Characters should obviously be deleted upon logging off. If you really wanted that character you'd stay logged in.

I would say if the account hasnt been used in over 12 months then the name should be forfeited, not the character deleted.

You telling me that if I'm not levelling my alts I'm not playing them the way you want is so, so hilarious. "You can be everything on one character so you don't need other characters, if you're not levelling them then clearly you don't care."

1) You don't have to level to RP. I don't RP in XIV but I have in other games, and I had plenty of level 1 or very low characters because of that.
2) I've got alts because they're the remakes of characters I had in other games that I love and miss. Beryllia, my lalafell archer, will never play like my hobbit hunter from LotRO, so I'm not keen on playing her, but I miss her, and it's fun to log her in and play with emotes.
3) Some of my characters exist simply because I wanted a character of a specific race and gender to dress up.

If you want the same original name that someone else has I find it exceedingly hard to believe, and if you want the same "fandom/gimmick/cosplay" name, get in line. It doesn't belong to anyone beyond the original creators and you have no more right over it because you want to level as someone at level 1 has because they got there first.

Some of us keep old character names when we make a change (for example due to keeping it lore friendly after a race change) to prevent any malicious player from impersonating us. As SE can't know if we've saved a name due to this reason, or for any other, I don't think that they should take any names away from us. That's it, unless an account has been inactive for -literally- years.

I think the best solution to this is to not tie character identity to their names. If you look on the lodestone, your character url is tied to a number. If character ID in game referenced this numbers, then we could have duplicate names.

Players definitely shouldn't lose names that they give their characters. If it's easy to refer to character ID's instead of names, I think it should be implemented. The only issue that I see is how to integrate this with the UI. Tells might go from /tell Player Name to /tell 123456, but that's less intuitive. If characters that are offline, far away, not friended, etc are filtered out, then we might be able to keep referencing names while using a filter of some sort.

Man, come 5.0 I can't wait to see all the XxSquallxX or Squall McClouds better get them now!

Unless you're going for names like that It's not really an issue. Other MMOs you get a first name and that's it. You could spend hours trying to get a name on a high pop server. Never had an Issue here Cept for that time I was trying to get Magical-Girl Sakura! (Not really :P)

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Originally Posted by KaiusCastell

Should there be a way for a player to submit a ticket in to get that name so they can actually use it or is it okay that people can essentially just take a name and not level it a single time & not have anything but the starter gear on it? Your thoughts?

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Enter the never ending "But I want that name because I'm a weeb!" cycle where the support system will be bogged down due to unoriginal names.

Disagree. If people come up with original names over trying to just use the names of anime/other video game characters, you're unlikely to run into this problem. All of my characters have unique, original names and I've never had a prompt telling me the name was unavailable (and all are established characters I've had for years - a few for over a decade). Only my main has her name taken by a few random players on other servers, but that's probably because she shares it with a Korean idol (who was not whom she was named after - that was just a strange coincidence).

I've also established a few alts by the name "Hyomin Park" on other servers. I eventually clean them out, as they are more for looking at housing ideas or markets, but I do have a few on different data centers I want to level at some point. When that point may be has yet to be decided, but it is planned.

I don't think players who would want my name (can't imagine why they would outside of naming a character after the aforementioned idol, who is not as popular in Korea as she used to be) should be able to dictate I change it after having a character made on a server well before they decided to make one. It would be highly coincidental if they had an original character that just happened to share my name.

What name could you possibly want that is already taken? You get both a first and last name, and even over a bunch of alts I've never encountered an issue in naming my characters, even the ones with more generic names like < Diamond Dawn.

I don't know about now, but certainly before Blizzard allowed players to request names to be released from long-time abandoned low level WoW characters. However in that game you are far more limited with name creation because there is no surname option and you can't use spaces or any form of punctuation. On top of that if you want to try a new class in that game you have to make another character. There is also the fact that there are two factions, and people create alts so they can play on both. It is extremely rare to come across a player who has no alts on the same server as their main. I had great difficulty naming characters in WoW. Often even names I made up were taken.

Having both a first name and surname field in FFXIV and the fact that you do not need to make alts to try other content means that if someone is using the name you want it usually means the name is well known (Cloud Strife for example), because frankly the chances of two people choosing the exact same original names in both fields is super low.

Anyone who has found their desired name taken in FFXIV has either encountered an ultra rare coincidence or they need to try to choose a more original name.

What I'm saying is the option to get a name released in WoW makes more sense there due to the restrictive naming options and the fact that nearly every player has several alts. In FFXIV we have far more freedom due to having two name fields and that there are far less characters per account due to not needing to make alts to try other classes. I don't see SE offering a service that not only would be rarely used, but is far from necessary because of the ease of being able to create an original unused name.

Also I don't like the idea of taking names from players. This isn't housing. The amount of different names available isn't limited. Someone else having a name you want doesn't prevent you from choosing another name for yourself.