Free Up Names (Suggestion)

[Penthea]

(to clarify, i am not saying this is something you agree with, just i don't agree with blizzard's methods of freeing names.)

The thing is WoW actually needs name culling. You can have only a one word name in that game, which can make finding an available name you like be very troublesome. I have spent several hours trying to find a name in WoW. It was especially difficult if I wanted a lore appropriate name. Sometimes the most obscure names in my tiny country's language, that is only spoken there, were taken. Sometimes even names I made up were taken. Many times I have had to settle for a name I didn't like because trying to find one I do enjoy felt like a lost cause. Furthermore you can now have the 50 character limit all on one server, so you can literally save 50 names in one server. FFXIV does not have this situation at all given we can have a max of only 8 characters per server.

In FFXIV name culling is significantly less needed because the likelihood that someone would have the exact combination of first name and surname you want is very low unless you want to use something from popular media or a common set of names that sound like one from real life. There is so much freedom with creativity by having two part names for characters. I was so incredibly happy when I saw that surnames were in FFXIV. Choosing my name for my first character in FFXIV was the first time in my 16+ years of mmos that my top choice for a name was not taken without going to a dead server.

While I don't think name culling is much needed in FFXIV I'm not against it. However I am against culling the name of any character at lvl 50 or higher. Players do come back after years sometimes, and it would suck if the name of a character you poured so many hours in to is no longer yours. If you are at least max lvl for the base game then the name should be yours forever.

And before anyone says "who cares? It's just a name" well for many of us being called by something we're not fond of does diminish our enjoyment in the game.

[Zomkei]

The thing is WoW actually needs name culling. You can have only a one word name in that game, which can make finding an available name you like be very troublesome. I have spent several hours trying to find a name in WoW. It was especially difficult if I wanted a lore appropriate name. Sometimes the most obscure names in my tiny country's language, that is only spoken there, were taken. Sometimes even names I made up were taken. Many times I have had to settle for a name I didn't like because trying to find one I do enjoy felt like a lost cause. Furthermore you can now have the 50 character limit all on one server, so you can literally save 50 names in one server. FFXIV does not have this situation at all given we can have a max of only 8 characters per server.

i actually didn't know this. i haven't played since pandaria, so hearing that you can now have 50 characters on one server is a shock lol. i suppose that's fair in WoW's case, though like you said, something that isn't needed in XIV.