I am wondering what people's thoughts are on changing names, for whatever reason. I did a quick google and forum check, so if I missed that that is already a post regarding this, apologies.
Would you like to see the ability to change a character name in game?
Would you prefer that once a character is created, that's their name for good (unless a GM changes it due to marriage, harrassment etc)
In WoW for instance, you can buy a name change and imo that sort of thing invites poor and abusive in-game behaviour from potentially toxic players and griefers. Why? Because if you wreck your reputation by ninja looting an item, griefing, being an all around jerk, or disruptor of groups or whatever, you can always buy a new name and start over and from what I have seen all this does is keep toxic players in the game. I know there will always be toxic players, but I would like to see toxicity in Pantheon minimized.
I would like to see no name changing whatsoever unless special circumstances, which would be determined by a GM, like marriage, player harrassment etc.
Once you pick your name, your reputation for the duration should be forever tied to your name, and it is up to you as a player to make or break your experience in Pantheon so that if someone wants to invest 160 hours into a character, then cannot get a group due to all their griefing of other players, it's on them for ruining that character and making it unplayable, as opposed to buying a name in WoW and repeating the cycle. All the other games I play and have played in the past, toxicity is so much higher where it is easy to change a name and retain some form of anonymity.
One other question that is sort of related to this:
Would you prefer to have all your characters on your account only visible to you, or visible to everyone?
By that I mean if someone has a really nice player that everyone on the server likes and is named "Stormboots" the Warrior, but ole Stormboots also happens to also be "Freshbiscuits" the rogue, one of the most toxic players on the server who forum lawyers hard, pushes the limites of rule breaking, disrupts and ruins gameplay intentionally etc, would you like to see Pantheon allow everyone to see what characters people have on their account publicly to discourage greif characters, or would you all prefer to have that information only accesible and visible to the owner of the account?
I can see arguments for both sides, but would like to see what others think on this.
I'm not sure, but I think we had this discussion already, but maybe under a different topic.
I'm not against name changes and if it is a possibility for VR to earn some dollars to offer this service, I see it as a thing that can help to support the improvement of the game.
But to prevent the toxic behaviour you have mention, there should be an unchanchable account handle. This should not be displayed by default, but there should be an easy way to check this handle for every character.
This would prevent the people from having one good character for raiding and one anoying, toxic second character, because with this handle everyone could see, that there is the same person behind this two characters.
If someone buys two accounts to do this, then of course there is no possibility to find that out, but this would be the same when not allowing to change the charactes name.
To the second question, no I don't want everyone to see all my characters. I will have some bank oder crafting characters and this one I don't want to be public visible.
To idenitfy griefers would suggest again a not per default displayed account handle.
I think a player should not be able to change their character name once created.
I don't see an issue with your second scenario, where a player has both a universally liked character and the most toxic character on the server on the same account. This player must enjoy being toxic some of the time but then enjoys comaradarie on the other. That shouldn't hurt me, so let him have all the fun he wants.
I don't think you should be able to change your character (name, race, and other things besides maybe hairstyle) once it has been created. I think if other things change, you have a new character. If there are name changes, they need to be on a very long cooldown (per account). I'm okay with server transfers as long as long as there is some limit to them. The idea of not being able to take your stuff with you is interesting, but I'm not sure it's necessary. If people are legitimately transfering to be with friends or an old guild, I think they should be able to do that without being punished. I also don't think anyone should be able to know which characters are alts of other characters. A lot of people use alts for some downtime. If people want you to know their alts, they'll tell you.
Beefcake said:I am not in favor of name changes. This game promo itself on accountability and decisions mattering. Name changes promote bad behavior and character selling.
Agree with Beefcake, I think if a person has spent their time being obnoxious to the community etc then they should also reap the consequences, no transfer no name change. Want to fix it? Reroll. :) And character selling don't agree with that either.
As with any feature in any game, if it can be abused/exploited, it will be absued/exploited. 20+ years of MMO's have proven that to me and mine beyond a shadow of a doubt.
So, I would rather not see a name change feature in Pantheon, even for RL money, no matter how expensive. Same goes with transfers. I would rather not see server transfers offered as a feature in Pantheon.
I am also strongly in favor of account wide ignore, so if you ignore someone, you ignore their entire account. That doesn't mean you are told what the account is. It just means if you ignore someone, automatically all their other characters are also on ignore. On the subject of ignore, IMO, any ignored character should also be invisible to me unless I'm grouped with them, and if I'm grouped, the only emotes/animations I see from them are casting or attacking NPC's. Otherwise, their character should appear idle at all times, just to those (me) that have them on ignore, while grouped with me. I think that covers most of the edge cases.
If I want the privilege or convenience of a second character not tied to that account? Time to buy a second account and level up another character. Incidentally, I fully anticipate if /follow is permitted in Pantheon that many MANY players will have multiple box characters levelled up concurrently, starting from launch day, having learned the value of time spent from EQ1. (as in, everyone will have a druid on /follow from day one)
vjek said:As with any feature in any game, if it can be abused/exploited, it will be absued/exploited. 20+ years of MMO's have proven that to me and mine beyond a shadow of a doubt.
So, I would rather not see a name change feature in Pantheon, even for RL money, no matter how expensive. Same goes with transfers. I would rather not see server transfers offered as a feature in Pantheon.
I am also strongly in favor of account wide ignore, so if you ignore someone, you ignore their entire account. That doesn't mean you are told what the account is. It just means if you ignore someone, automatically all their other characters are also on ignore. On the subject of ignore, IMO, any ignored character should also be invisible to me unless I'm grouped with them, and if I'm grouped, the only emotes/animations I see from them are casting or attacking NPC's. Otherwise, their character should appear idle at all times, just to those (me) that have them on ignore, while grouped with me. I think that covers most of the edge cases.
If I want the privilege or convenience of a second character not tied to that account? Time to buy a second account and level up another character. Incidentally, I fully anticipate if /follow is permitted in Pantheon that many MANY players will have multiple box characters levelled up concurrently, starting from launch day, having learned the value of time spent from EQ1. (as in, everyone will have a druid on /follow from day one)
I would not be against an OPTION for an account-wide ignore, but not automatic.
Not sure the point to ignored players being invisible or idle. Seems like a lot of effort for little results.
As I understand the last stream, they are going to try to make combat immersive enough to dissuade people from having boxed toons.
I don't think the problem will be near as many people boxing druids as you do, definitely not at the start. I do not plan on allowing boxed toons into any group I am apart of. That's the easiest way to resolve it.
Im for server change but would like it so that they could not change name then.. because i know people who scammed and then changed name or if you could not change the name they changed to server 2 and then made a character with the name they had on server 1 on server 1 and then move back their char from server 2 and then it would say that the name is taken and that they have to pick a new name and could scam people all over agian... Im all for ingame scams i never did it myself but it adds to the game in a way that there are some "bad guys" with a bad rep.. its a thing that i love with old MMOs you knew the people on the server.. you knew what guild was super good, what people was really good in the enemy faction in PvP and so on.. you knew crafters that was active and had good prices and fast delivery and all that stuff.. I love that and it was the same thing with scammers you knew what people/guilds who were shady..
Its a tough one tho because i know that you might start playing the game early and then 4 months in meet some old IRL friend and talk and then you figure out that you both play pantheon but on different servers.. so i want server transfer but not name change...
I recomend this..
1. you can only change server once every month
2. names in pantheon are region locked.. so if i take Bobthespiderslayer on EU no one else can take it even if there is 20 servers in EU..
I dont know if people agree but thats what i want.. i know people can just buy a new account but atleast then they have to level up a new char to max level and i gues that will take some time in this game..
Edit: i dont care if its region or global lock on names but these are my ideas and how i wish they would handle names and server merges.. Scamming should not be bannable.. You can get scammed IRL to.. do it the old way report it to people on the server post the evidence so people know not to trust them..
I believe another option that has been brought up in previous discussions is having the ability to see all the names a character has had, a historical view. This way if someone changes their name, anyone can easily see who they were before.
I don't remember who's idea this was, and I'm too lazy and tired at the moment to go look it up :)
In a fantasy game far far away.....
Gamer 1: "Dude Cohh that is a cool name!! Is that for call of the hero's hero?"
Cohh: "No man, it's just my name, it's just Cohh."
Gamer 1: "Yeah, but you totally picked it as short for call of the hero right?"
Cohh: "No. Just Cohh. Nothing else."
Gamer 1: "Was Coh already taken? So you had to add the extra "h" on the end?"
Cohh: "its NOT call of the hero, its Cohh, sounds like Koe."
15 minutes later
Gamer 2: "Love the name man!! Call of the hero! You must have reserved that early!!!"
Cohh: "it's not call of the anything! It's just my name! Just Cohh!
Gamer 2: "why would you pick it then man? You stole call of the hero from someone else for no reason?"
Cohh: "I didn't steal call of the hero! I picked MY NAME, which is Cohh!"
Gamer 2: "that's lame man!"
Another 3.5 minutes after that....
Gamer 3: "Dude, was coh already taken so you had to add an extra "hero" to call of the hero or what??"
Cohh: "SON OF A @#%$"
Cohh: /petition
GM: "Greetings player Cohh, what can I assist you with today on Terminus?"
Cohh: "I'd like a name change."
GM: "Did you accidentally add an extra "h" to your call of the hero?"
Cohh: "It wasn't supposed to be call of the hero, it's just Cohh, sounds like Koe.
GM: "You want me to change it to Koe?"
Cohh: "Frank, I want you to change it to Frank!"
GM: "WTH???"
RumorHasit said:In a fantasy game far far away.....
Gamer 1: "Dude Cohh that is a cool name!! Is that for call of the hero's hero?"
Cohh: "No man, it's just my name, it's just Cohh."
Gamer 1: "Yeah, but you totally picked it as short for call of the hero right?"
Cohh: "No. Just Cohh. Nothing else."
Gamer 1: "Was Coh already taken? So you had to add the extra "h" on the end?"
Cohh: "its NOT call of the hero, its Cohh, sounds like Koe."15 minutes later
Gamer 2: "Love the name man!! Call of the hero! You must have reserved that early!!!"
Cohh: "it's not call of the anything! It's just my name! Just Cohh!
Gamer 2: "why would you pick it then man? You stole call of the hero from someone else for no reason?"
Cohh: "I didn't steal call of the hero! I picked MY NAME, which is Cohh!"
Gamer 2: "that's lame man!"Another 3.5 minutes after that....
Gamer 3: "Dude, was coh already taken so you had to add an extra "hero" to call of the hero or what??"
Cohh: "SON OF A @#%$"Cohh: /petition
GM: "Greetings player Cohh, what can I assist you with today on Terminus?"
Cohh: "I'd like a name change."
GM: "Did you accidentally add an extra "h" to your call of the hero?"
Cohh: "It wasn't supposed to be call of the hero, it's just Cohh, sounds like Koe.
GM: "You want me to change it to Koe?"
Cohh: "Frank, I want you to change it to Frank!"
GM: "WTH???"
Hello GM Kilsin here, sorry to inform you but we do not provide a name changing service, good luck with everything, Cohh!
/cast call of the hero on Cohh and summon him to a newbie area
/ZoneAnnounce: Free call of the hero from this guy --> point to Cohh and GM root him in place
/GM Invis
/tell VR GMs: come and check this out, invis on first then port to me!
/Popcorn :D
I think no account name changes is pretty much a given. I'm not aware of any MMO that does that without some sort of interaction with CS under exceptional circumstances.
As for character name changes, yes that fine, but they should go into a queue for GM review. GMs can see if their account has any black marks against them. If it is obvious they are simply using it to 'reboot' a bad rep then it is denied. If the account is clean, it gets approved.
Server transfers are a must, unless we are going with the Rift approach of letting people hop shards at will (maybe with a cool down or something).
Kilsin said:RumorHasit said:In a fantasy game far far away.....
Gamer 1: "Dude Cohh that is a cool name!! Is that for call of the hero's hero?"
Cohh: "No man, it's just my name, it's just Cohh."
Gamer 1: "Yeah, but you totally picked it as short for call of the hero right?"
Cohh: "No. Just Cohh. Nothing else."
Gamer 1: "Was Coh already taken? So you had to add the extra "h" on the end?"
Cohh: "its NOT call of the hero, its Cohh, sounds like Koe."15 minutes later
Gamer 2: "Love the name man!! Call of the hero! You must have reserved that early!!!"
Cohh: "it's not call of the anything! It's just my name! Just Cohh!
Gamer 2: "why would you pick it then man? You stole call of the hero from someone else for no reason?"
Cohh: "I didn't steal call of the hero! I picked MY NAME, which is Cohh!"
Gamer 2: "that's lame man!"Another 3.5 minutes after that....
Gamer 3: "Dude, was coh already taken so you had to add an extra "hero" to call of the hero or what??"
Cohh: "SON OF A @#%$"Cohh: /petition
GM: "Greetings player Cohh, what can I assist you with today on Terminus?"
Cohh: "I'd like a name change."
GM: "Did you accidentally add an extra "h" to your call of the hero?"
Cohh: "It wasn't supposed to be call of the hero, it's just Cohh, sounds like Koe.
GM: "You want me to change it to Koe?"
Cohh: "Frank, I want you to change it to Frank!"
GM: "WTH???"
Hello GM Kilsin here, sorry to inform you but we do not provide a name changing service, good luck with everything, Cohh!
/cast call of the hero on Cohh and summon him to a newbie area
/ZoneAnnounce: Free call of the hero from this guy --> point to Cohh and GM root him in place
/GM Invis
/tell VR GMs: come and check this out, invis on first then port to me!
/Popcorn :D
AHHAHAH dick move GM!! :)
I'm 98% sure I saw Brad post on a facebook response that, since Pantheon was a social game and your reputation mattered, there would be no name changes. Whatever reputation you create for yourself you have to live with, or roll a new toon with a new approach on social gameplay in mind. He seemed pretty matter of fact about it, but I'm sure there are a lot of things still up in the air.
Kilsin said:RumorHasit said:In a fantasy game far far away.....
Gamer 1: "Dude Cohh that is a cool name!! Is that for call of the hero's hero?"
Cohh: "No man, it's just my name, it's just Cohh."
Gamer 1: "Yeah, but you totally picked it as short for call of the hero right?"
Cohh: "No. Just Cohh. Nothing else."
Gamer 1: "Was Coh already taken? So you had to add the extra "h" on the end?"
Cohh: "its NOT call of the hero, its Cohh, sounds like Koe."15 minutes later
Gamer 2: "Love the name man!! Call of the hero! You must have reserved that early!!!"
Cohh: "it's not call of the anything! It's just my name! Just Cohh!
Gamer 2: "why would you pick it then man? You stole call of the hero from someone else for no reason?"
Cohh: "I didn't steal call of the hero! I picked MY NAME, which is Cohh!"
Gamer 2: "that's lame man!"Another 3.5 minutes after that....
Gamer 3: "Dude, was coh already taken so you had to add an extra "hero" to call of the hero or what??"
Cohh: "SON OF A @#%$"Cohh: /petition
GM: "Greetings player Cohh, what can I assist you with today on Terminus?"
Cohh: "I'd like a name change."
GM: "Did you accidentally add an extra "h" to your call of the hero?"
Cohh: "It wasn't supposed to be call of the hero, it's just Cohh, sounds like Koe.
GM: "You want me to change it to Koe?"
Cohh: "Frank, I want you to change it to Frank!"
GM: "WTH???"
Hello GM Kilsin here, sorry to inform you but we do not provide a name changing service, good luck with everything, Cohh!
/cast call of the hero on Cohh and summon him to a newbie area
/ZoneAnnounce: Free call of the hero from this guy --> point to Cohh and GM root him in place
/GM Invis
/tell VR GMs: come and check this out, invis on first then port to me!
/Popcorn :D
haha ^^i needed this!
I still prefer not to have name changes available in this game, but if they end up being in, I think that idea to have all of their past names viewable (maybe upon inspect or something) is a great one. That would also support name changes for RP reasons. "I was born , but when I joined this guild, I became ." Still definitely prefer no name changes, though.
Account-wide ignore sounds great, but I don't agree with the part about making their characters invisible.
Kilsin said:RumorHasit said:In a fantasy game far far away.....
Gamer 1: "Dude Cohh that is a cool name!! Is that for call of the hero's hero?"
Cohh: "No man, it's just my name, it's just Cohh."
Gamer 1: "Yeah, but you totally picked it as short for call of the hero right?"
Cohh: "No. Just Cohh. Nothing else."
Gamer 1: "Was Coh already taken? So you had to add the extra "h" on the end?"
Cohh: "its NOT call of the hero, its Cohh, sounds like Koe."15 minutes later
Gamer 2: "Love the name man!! Call of the hero! You must have reserved that early!!!"
Cohh: "it's not call of the anything! It's just my name! Just Cohh!
Gamer 2: "why would you pick it then man? You stole call of the hero from someone else for no reason?"
Cohh: "I didn't steal call of the hero! I picked MY NAME, which is Cohh!"
Gamer 2: "that's lame man!"Another 3.5 minutes after that....
Gamer 3: "Dude, was coh already taken so you had to add an extra "hero" to call of the hero or what??"
Cohh: "SON OF A @#%$"Cohh: /petition
GM: "Greetings player Cohh, what can I assist you with today on Terminus?"
Cohh: "I'd like a name change."
GM: "Did you accidentally add an extra "h" to your call of the hero?"
Cohh: "It wasn't supposed to be call of the hero, it's just Cohh, sounds like Koe.
GM: "You want me to change it to Koe?"
Cohh: "Frank, I want you to change it to Frank!"
GM: "WTH???"
Hello GM Kilsin here, sorry to inform you but we do not provide a name changing service, good luck with everything, Cohh!
/cast call of the hero on Cohh and summon him to a newbie area
/ZoneAnnounce: Free call of the hero from this guy --> point to Cohh and GM root him in place
/GM Invis
/tell VR GMs: come and check this out, invis on first then port to me!
/Popcorn :D
Oh you are tricksy GM Kilsin!!! Your "/popcorn :D" memwipe at the end was well played, well played indeed!! But, now you have to share the popcorn!!!