Name-Change Caveats and How to Avoid Them

[Shneibel]

I didn't even have to check your server to tell you were also from Balmung :P Oh god it's nothing like that. It's an odd situation On one hand there are some where disappearing might offend them and I don't really want to deal with the dramatics afterwards, and then some people who will try to bug me afterwards and I'd prefer to just play solo.

Dear MMOs. Looks like I'll transfer then and come back once the Balmung cap drops off. Cheers for the heads up, appreciate the advice

just say, transfer out is easy, but transfer back in might be hard

[Hyunckel]

Also, say someone searches your old name on google and follows the link to the lodestone, it will just have your new character on there, since the website links to your character ID.

Basically, if anyone has a reason to want to know your new name, they will be able to find it.

Also if someone has added you to their friendlist and you accepted, they can look you up on their Lodestone wall (http://eu.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodestone/my/) and follow the link to your new name to have your Lodestone ID, making changing server useless if you wanted people not to be able to trace you

[kyuven]

Sometimes you just have to deal with awkward social situations without hiding from them, even if it's hard.
If they're harassing you, report them. If it would just be super awkward, don't bring it up unless they do.

[Deculture]

Your character ID stays the same on the lodestone even if you xfer, so if someone has your lodestone profile bookmarked/in their history then they'll still know your old character's name.

source: I xferred to Gilgamesh from Ultros and my Lodestone ID is still the same.

[Ellatrix]

Your lodestone ID is tied to you forever.

Make a new character if you want to run away from your past.

[314159265358979323846264338327]

What's truly amazing is that removing someone from your friends list does NOT remove you from theirs. Like what's that all about?

[Hyunckel]

What's truly amazing is that removing someone from your friends list does NOT remove you from theirs. Like what's that all about?

What's even better is if you remove someone from your friendlist and blacklist him/her, he'll still be able to see you online and on player search lmao. Maybe not after a logout/log back in but from my tests it was working.

See here for more blacklist / friendlist / busy status weirdness:
Is it normal to see deleted people from my Friend List on my Lodestone Wall?

[Ayamia]

There is only one way to do this. Transfer server. :P If you want your name changed for free in the process, make an alt with your name on the server you wish to transfer to.

False. Someone in my friend list transferred to another server to change name and came back... And I saw the new name on the friend list since I didn't delete the <Deleted>. He was less than pleased to find out it didn't work the way he wanted it to.

[ZanzhizExaverion]

I've heard at least on my server some people who have had a bad reputation with trying to clear raids changed their names so people wouldn't recognize them anymore to get clears.

[Ashkendor]

I've heard at least on my server some people who have had a bad reputation with trying to clear raids changed their names so people wouldn't recognize them anymore to get clears.

Lmao. I know who you're talking about. There have been several PF's giving his new name. I actually replaced him in a T9 group (largely because of his reputation) despite not being 100% comfortable with the entire raid at the time and got several clears. It's kinda sad that people were more willing to deal with someone completely random.