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.

[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.

[Kosmos992k]

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.

Why? If you create alts with a name that you really like but rarely play them, why should that result in the removal of the character by default. The number of character names that this will cover is really quite small. We really are looking at common Anime and other fictional character names, anything else is unlikely to have two completely unrelated players choosing the exact spelling, except perhaps for John Smith, or something like that.

Deleting characters is a very severe sanction to take against a player for not playing a character in a long time, just so someone can name their character Kirito, Asuna, Cloud, Link, or whatever. Find another way to incorporate the name you want, and accept that someone else already used the name.

Like I said earlier... If anything I think a "release name" system would be better. Just flag inactive characters for a rename and release the one they had.. because from what I have read ... that is the real issue people are upset about here. (The inventory issue is speculative. You have no idea if deleting other characters would equate to more space for other users, some how, I personally doubt that.)

There is just no reason to delete characters, outside of them being gil sellers. If Square starts running out of storage space on servers, maybe it will be an issue, but until then, a flag inactive for rename system would be better.

Deleting characters would not free up space on servers at all. dormant characters are not stored in active memory, only ones actually logged into the game. Deleting a player's seldom used characters has zero impact except punishing that player for no reason.

I would say if a character under level 30 and has not logged in and been a year or more it pretty safe to say that person not coming back.

I have several alts that I play infrequently that are under level 30, Why do you think that my characters should be deleted? What did I do wrong? What rule did I break? Oh, that's right, none. It's because someone else wants to take a name I selected. Sounds like a pretty damned severe form of player harassment if you ask me.

The fact that we can have a first and last name, should clear up most of the naming issues people have. Choose a different name...
It really is too bad so sad that you didnt get to that name first, but that does not mean that SE should kill off anyone's character no matter how little or long or it has been played.

Besides, I've never heard of any MMO relinquishing names.

Indeed, break a name at each syllable with an apostrophe, or change the spelling. There should be no character deletion or forced name changes unless the TOS has been broken, and even then, only where a name is against the TOS.

[Imoen]

snip

Which is exactly why I was against it. Not sure why I'm getting quoted here. Unless you are just agreeing with me, or clarifying for others.

[Kosmos992k]

Which is exactly why I was against it. Not sure why I'm getting quoted here. Unless you are just agreeing with me, or clarifying for others.

I was agreeing with you, about not deleting characters, and clarifying the impact, or rather the lack of impact, that an inactive character has on the server(s). There is a lot of misunderstanding among players regarding the impact of deleting characters, it usually comes up in RMT topics, but I wanted to clarify because inactive characters have essentially zero impact on servers.

[Imoen]

I was agreeing with you, about not deleting characters, and clarifying the impact, or rather the lack of impact, that an inactive character has on the server(s).

Understood. Was confused :P