Quote Originally Posted by Zomkei View Post
i actually do not support this. unplayed level 1, sure, but not any character. people are already stressed enough about not being able to take breaks via housing as it is that we don't need to stress folks who don't own housing. there are people who take extended breaks and want to keep their names, i don't think forcing name changes on them should someone else take their name is fair.

(to clarify, i am not saying this is something you agree with, just i don't agree with blizzard's methods of freeing names.)
I also don't think it's necessary in FFXIV but it's practically required in WoW.

WoW only uses one word names and doesn't have class changing like XIV. If you want to play a difference class you need another character, meaning most players have entire stables of characters. That leads to situations where bigger and older servers are effectively out of regular names. They have to free up names periodically and "account has been inactive for 2+ expansions" feels like a reasonable cutoff.

In FFXIV this is a complete non-issue though because two part names and a much smaller number of characters per server means any given name, or something close to it, will probably be available. Unless you want some specific popular name (I imagine there's probably a Jon Snow on every server) what are the odds someone else wants the exact same name as you? (I've met other Jennas and other Starsongs, but according to the Lodestone I'm the only Jenna Starsong in the whole game.)