Shorten Names Poll

[Dragon]

I feel like they should keep the length of the names you can use the same. However I've never been a fan of the last names, but of course some are big fans of them. I think they should simply make last names optional. This way everyone will be happy. Also, if someone wants just a first name they can take it. If someone else wants that first name as well, they have to have a last name so they can have the name too. Just my opinion~

Sure, make them optional. That's a fine middle road.

[OJtheLIONKing]

Sure, make them optional. That's a fine middle road.

They've taken a lot of middle road options even when they probably shouldn't have because of a vocal minority against anything that's not from FFXI. For instance, remember when everyone was complaining about levels and such being displayed on monster names? Yet I haven't run into a single person that has those turned off nowadays, it only confuses new people because some of the options are off by default.

This is a bigger case of that. This is a case where it's not really feasible to have one name or another, among other things it'd impact ingame communication and social lists. I say they should keep the last names, because not many MMOs have them, and without the last names you tend to get a lot of cookie cutter names with one letter changed. People can be more unique with this system.

[Fensfield]

They've taken a lot of middle road options even when they probably shouldn't have because of a vocal minority against anything that's not from FFXI. For instance, remember when everyone was complaining about levels and such being displayed on monster names? Yet I haven't run into a single person that has those turned off nowadays, it only confuses new people because some of the options are off by default.

This is a bigger case of that. This is a case where it's not really feasible to have one name or another, among other things it'd impact ingame communication and social lists. I say they should keep the last names, because not many MMOs have them, and without the last names you tend to get a lot of cookie cutter names with one letter changed. People can be more unique with this system.

Well, I keep level and aggression icons turned off, for my part, so here's one person and extremely glad the developers were willing to do so. I much prefer that stuff be limited to the targeting readout. And the reason why you haven't seen anyone who has them off.. well.. why would you? It's not like you see other people's UI's, and people don't tend to trumpet to the rooftops the fact that something isn't bothering them. People only tend to get vocal when something is annoying. Sure the people leave this stuff turned on are probably the majority to some extent, but god knows, I know a fair few don't among my friends.

Still, you make a valid point, in a way, but only with regard to stuff outside the UI - I think there should be as much support for people's preferences with regard to what parts of the default UI they use as possible, not least because those are much easier to accommodate than things linked into character motion, game systems, and the way the database works, but also because flexibility in those areas is just plain good game design. I know the enjoyability of my experience would be reduced had they not been so accommodating, and the first add-on I'd be hunting for come 2.0 would be one to cut out the elements I don't want on-screen.

That aside however, I agree in this case - although not quite for the same reasons.

I'm strongly in favour of keeping surnames. I like it simply for being able to have it, yes, but I am so, so glad of the game not only letting people have whatever forename they want, but also giving us the off-chance of meeting people chose similarly.

All those against it, I mean.. why? The only argument approaches valid that I've seen is one of convenience, and there are so many functions that make it unnecessary to ever type out a player's name more than once per session; thrice if you consider some of those functions to be less convenient than simply typing. And if it's a convenience issue with interface functionality, well, why not ask and suggest ways for that to be improved? It even goes a short way to discouraging names that use bizarre letter/number/punctuation patterns, though some still will for more deliberate reasons - even if others subsequently think they look weird for it. Meanwhile, if you force their removal, you deprive the people who enjoy those various advantages, and while I'd be alright with a middle ground.. how would you enable that?

The system as it is now enables people to share identical forenames or surnames as long as both are not exactly the same as another character's. The option to have a forename alone would mean at the very most, only one person could have a particular lone forename. It would also blunt the system's effectiveness when it comes to discouraging the habit of players using bizarre names like 'XxSephixX' and the like, which forename/surname being non-optional goes a fair distance toward averting. And that's setting aside the issue of rebuilding the game's database structure to support it, which would probably be a monumental task given I can't think of any game system that might not be in some way linked to our chosen names.

The only middle ground I can realistically imagine is giving people the ability to disable surnames being displayed on-screen at all times without hiding forenames, too. I'd be more than okay with that. Well, and perhaps further iteration on the convenience measures, like being able to create shortcut tags for your friends' names that could be used with /t and the like. Or, hell, even just developing and publicising a bit more the pages that describe those convenience measures, given how many of the people here obviously haven't read them.

....

On another note, hi OJ. Thanks again for helping so much with the tropes page and all >.>