Beware of name changes, especially legacy players and on legacy servers

[Kamineko-XIV]

I lost my legacy name that I had since 1.0 beta/2.0 because I did a name change. I am a legacy player, with a legacy name on a legacy server.

I wanted to do a name change because of privacy reasons, but also did not want to lose my legacy name and was planning to make an alt immediately after to ‘save’ my legacy name. Seconds after I committed the name change, I attempted to make an alt with my legacy name. The game says “That character name cannot be used. Please input another. 3035.” My legacy name was lost. The name couldn’t have been taken by another player, because I attempted to make the alt seconds after the name change was committed, and again and again for several more hours. 24-hours later I paid for another name change to try and revert my name back to the legacy name and received the same failure message.

So I contacted the in-game GMs to get help. They are very limited in what they can do.

Normally when a person does a name change, the old name is freed up for re-use immediately. But per the GM I spoke to, because of server merges from 1.0 to 2.0, that process is fraught with issues and glitches. They believe that my legacy name is now glitched and permanently removed from use due to the issues caused from the server merges.

The GMs have escalated my case and now I wait to see if anything can be done. Had I known the name change would act in this manner, I never would have committed to it. I would have kept my legacy name and been happy with it.

This whole experience has been incredibly emotionally difficult for me. My name is my identity. I have had it since 1.0 and before in FFXI for 20+ years now. And now its gone.

So what is to be done?

• GMs should have the ability to remedy this situation on the spot. To change names and revert name changes and unflag names that are removed from service.

• SE should offer assurances that a name change can be reverted for XX hours (24 to 72 hours perhaps) after a name change is completed at no additional charge, such as they have done with fantasias giving 60 minutes to change appearances.

• They should only permit the person doing the name change to have access to the previous name for 30 days, before putting it back into general use for others.

• They should tell the user if a name will be available or removed from service after a name change is committed, before even paying for it.

• Fixing the spaghetti coding might be a tall ask, but these systems should work as expected, each and every time, and when they don’t, SE should be able to offer a correction to a faulty system.

Be careful with name changes. I dearly hope I can get my legacy name back now.

If anyone from SE can help me with this further, please reach out to me. Thank you.

[Aneshda]

I lost my legacy name that I had since 1.0 beta/2.0 because I did a name change. I am a legacy player, with a legacy name on a legacy server.

I wanted to do a name change because of privacy reasons, but also did not want to lose my legacy name and was planning to make an alt immediately after to ‘save’ my legacy name.

The GMs have escalated my case and now I wait to see if anything can be done. Had I known the name change would act in this manner, I never would have committed to it. I would have kept my legacy name and been happy with it.

This whole experience has been incredibly emotionally difficult for me. My name is my identity. I have had it since 1.0 and before in FFXI for 20+ years now. And now its gone.

That doesn't really make sense, does it?

[Kamineko-XIV]

"I wanted to do a name change because of privacy reasons." This is true.

"My name is my identity." This is also true.

When doing a player-initiated name change, the normal behavior is that the old name is made available again immediately for use by an alt or another player. If it does not become available, the system is not working properly. Based on this very normal expectation, I wanted to save my old name and not permanently lose access to it. I wanted to leave the option open to rollback to my old name, if and when I felt the time was right and to not permanently lose access to it immediately due to faulty legacy coding.

I am only posting here because it was the advice of the GM to do so, to hopefully bolster my case and to warn others of the problem. I just want my old name back. Currently there is no system to revert name changes. I am at the mercy of SE to do something about it and I don't want others to experience the same heartache that I have.

[Ajisaii]

What do you mean for privacy reasons? your lodestone ID never changes if someone was stalking you all they'd have to do is google your old name and your lodestone pops up or check their search history for your lodestone if they had checked it and it will bring them to your character anyway.

[DiaDeem]

My Name is Optimus Prime

[CVXIV]

I like that you responded with presumably your main then swapped to a forum alt
very mysterious, good job

[DreadCrow]

...maybe if you tried to make a new character, right after a name change, you couldn't do it because the Lodestone didn't update yet and thought your legacy name was still there?

[Kamineko-XIV]

I did a name change for personal reasons. But, the reason why I did a name change is beside the point.

The important part is that when a name change is completed, it is expected to work in a certain manner. Legacy players or legacy server players, that do a name change for any reason at all, will run the same risk of encountering this fatal error that I did.

I do not wish for this to happen to anyone. It is not a good feeling.

[weebtext]

All this talk of privacy/personal reasons makes me think your legacy name was your irl name lol

[Kamineko-XIV]

...maybe if you tried to make a new character, right after a name change, you couldn't do it because the Lodestone didn't update yet and thought your legacy name was still there?

You can make a character, wait for it to populate a lodestone profile, delete that character and make another one immediately with the same name.