Name Change

[SenzorialBoundries]

I have a question , do square enix delete the inactive characters or trial chars ? i mean there are so many great names out there taken by some lvl 10 clearly inactive toons. I was looking to change my name and every name i want is taken by a lvl 1-25 toon , clearly inactive.

[Khalithar]

I don't think we've got an official answer on this, what you could do is open a ticket maybe and ask them if they can free up a character name that's been inactive for a while, I know WoW does something like this where if a character is inactive for a certain amount of time, you can contact a GM to take the name from them and free it up for yourself.

[Ladon]

They've never took an official stance on this, but I doubt they ever delete inactive characters on inactive accounts. MMOs used to do this way back when data retention wasn't as trivial and cheap as it is today. I know people that reactivated FF11 accounts that were inactive for 10 years and their characters were still around. I know more than a few people that had not played 1.0 since the first few months it was released come back to ARR with their account and characters fully intact so I don't really think they have a process for deleting old, inactive accounts.

[Khalithar]

They've never took an official stance on this, but I doubt they ever delete inactive characters on inactive accounts. MMOs used to do this way back when data retention wasn't as trivial and cheap as it is today. I know people that reactivated FF11 accounts that were inactive for 10 years and their characters were still around. I know more than a few people that had not played 1.0 since the first few months it was released come back to ARR with their account and characters fully intact so I don't really think they have a process for deleting old, inactive accounts.

The OP isn't necessarily asking for the characters to be deleted, rather they are asking if there is a system that other MMO's have, where if a character is inactive for a while, a GM can free up their name for someone else and if that person ever comes back, they have to change their name.

[Nghthawk]

If they aren't going to take away the houses from in-active players they aren't going to do that with names that are already taken

[SecretCrowds]

I had an account that I deleted. As in cancel the mogstation service account, which is irreversible, unlike cancelling FF14 account.

SE refuses to remove the name of a character on that deleted account. A character which can't be accessed anymore and has been inactive over a year. I can still find that character on lodestone.