should SE delete characters that were never used

[KoroushSensei]

someone created a character with the name i want. it was created long ago but never played. i can never use that name until that person deletes that character. do you think SE should remove characters like that?

[Vidu]

Because YOU want the name?
We had discussions of how its unfair that houses are getting removed from someone who hasnt logged in for an amount of time (we have that in place now) - having your character deleted would be even worse. Even if its highly unlikely that a character who has never been played seriously would be re-activated that deletion would (by your reasoning) imply to all characters who hasnt been played for a set amount of time, right? Eh, I dont think I like this idea... may it be because it would be "unfair" for people who cant play for a longer amount of time or just because I wouldnt want to loose some characters on my friends list who probadly would have been gone (silly, I know, but as long as those characters are there I have hope the people might come back one day - dont destroy my silly, little dreams)

[Welsper59]

For the sake of names, this generally isn't a normal practice. It comes with a number of problems that are on the user level, that's why. The most important one of those being that there is a potential for lasting impressions pertaining to that character name on the given server. This could be on the end of someone pretending to be this person before (very far fetched) or that someone take the name of an individual who had a bad rep. You generally don't want to start on a server that had someone with that exact name renowned as a d-bag, ninja looter, or just an overall bad player. Then there's always the obvious one that said player may join up again some day.

In most cases, this might only occur if servers cannot handle new character creations anymore, so they have to purge character data entirely. FFXI had a period of time that this was a thing, though it was extremely rare for it to even happen despite that. Given that our character names are based on first and last, the potential for it to be a problem is ridiculously small compared to games involving just one name. You can always alter a name that is already taken. Just remember that generally, names you don't come up with yourself (stuff from movies, books, anime, etc) are always going to be a high risk for being unavailable. For that (good) reason alone, devs won't see it as a problem, and instead look at it as more of an inconvenience to the games players.

[Slappah]

If someone is under level 10 and hasn't played in over a year, yes I feel they should be deleted to free up that name.

Or even better, just force them to change their name upon attempting to log in (which they likely won't, if they never got to level 10 and haven't played in a year, their more than likely to start a new character)

I think this would be perfectly fair.

[myahele]

Or you can perhaps think of a different name? Something less mainstream?

[Rowyne]

Or even better, just force them to change their name upon attempting to log in (which they likely won't, if they never got to level 10 and haven't played in a year, their more than likely to start a new character)

There are some MMOs that have done that in the past. If you haven't played in a certain amount of time, your name is up for grabs and you're prompted to change it upon login if someone else has snatched it up. If you haven't played in, say, a year, then I think that's fair.

Character deletion, however, I don't agree with.

[Suirieko]

Let's not do anything about a character who is only 15 days old and have not logged in for over one year.

Great idea.

[Suirieko]

On serious note: If a character has only 6 hours of playtime, and have not logged in for well over a year, I don't think anyone's gonna cry if they're deleted.

to summarize what I mean:

Any characters that have less than certain amount of playtime, of say... 40 hours, and have not logged in after a certain period of time, of say... 365 days, they should be deleted, obviously they have no interest in going back into the game.

[Bixillarla]

I have a level 1 character with a name that I am holding. When I got married to my hubby in game I changed my name to match his last name and made a character with my old name in case I want it back in the event that we break up.

There are legitimate reasons someone will have a name on a low level character and have not logged in with that character.

[Suirieko]

So make it as an alt, make sure you log on to it every few weeks or so, and you're fine.

A year is plenty of time >_>