Shucklighter said: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.
Agree with this.
Ignore is also a very valuable feature to me though it takes a lot for someone to actually hit ignore status. The option to ignore a specific character, or choose to ignore account wide based on the actions of a player would be really nice too. Making ignored chars/accounts invis would be kind of wierd, but could maybe also be player choice to have their chosen ignore victim be visible or not? If someone is griefing someone else so badly that they are using a player model to harrass by getting in front of them constantly to block their line of sight etc, I think at that point a GM would need to intervene and ban the offending account, temp ban or permanently depending on the situation.
Reht said:I don't mind name changes because inevitably people figure out who you are and were if your attitude doesn't change with your name change.
This is a good point, but I also wouldn't mind a way of seeing someone's name history. A mini background check when adding someone to a guild or whatever would be nice in that regard.
I'd say name changes are fine as long as there is some way to check someone and as long as it's difficult to do. I'd even go off and say this is one of the few features they SHOULD monetize so people don't do this often. I wouldn't count this as P2W if that was the case.
Name changes and server transfers should be allowed and the people should not have to go naked....just make everything they have bound to account so they can't mess up economy on a new server.... I'd like to see it work something like this...and this goes for name and server change.. 1st one...15 2nd....30 3rd...45 4th...60 5th and final...100
Should only be allowed 1 time per 3 months.
Megaera said:Name changes and server transfers should be allowed and the people should not have to go naked....just make everything they have bound to account so they can't mess up economy on a new server.... I'd like to see it work something like this...and this goes for name and server change.. 1st one...15 2nd....30 3rd...45 4th...60 5th and final...100
Should only be allowed 1 time per 3 months.
The point of going naked is so you can't go easily. Economy isn't the only point here. Reputation and Gold are also incredibly huge factors. Why should a scammer or whatever be able to jump to another Server, change names, then continue the proccess easily while racking up profits from multiple servers? What if there was a gold exploit on one server, a new server opens, and months later gets corrupted by the problems of people transfering to the new server with high amounts of gold?
In addition, transfers to new servers shouldn't be a thing for a long time post their opening.
Going naked is probably is one of the best ideas I've ever heard when it's comes to server transfer.
Don't have an answer for this set-in stone -- too early for that. But the topic does bring up some serious issues.
If players can just arbitrarily change their name then it would be rather difficult for the community to recognize players who are out to ruin other people's experiences. There has to be responsibility. You should be able to become famous, but then infamous as well.
If you truly ruin your reputation by being a griefer and a jerk, then you should probably have to make an alt and assume a personality that fits in with the community.
So, in general, no to name changes. Specifics, however, like I said, TBD.
Aradune said:Don't have an answer for this set-in stone -- too early for that. But the topic does bring up some serious issues.
If players can just arbitrarily change their name then it would be rather difficult for the community to recognize players who are out to ruin other people's experiences. There has to be responsibility. You should be able to become famous, but then infamous as well.
If you truly ruin your reputation by being a griefer and a jerk, then you should probably have to make an alt and assume a personality that fits in with the community.
So, in general, no to name changes. Specifics, however, like I said, TBD.
Nice man, I share your opinion and think it would be pretty devastating to the community to allow these unless they were forced name changes that got past the profanity/name filter etc. otherwise, treat people they way you would like to be treated and enjoy your time in Terminus, act like a dick and get treated like one making that person work hard to earn the communities respect back, otherwise, forever exiled and groupless ;)
Not sure how name changes would be pretty devastating to the community...they certainly didn't devastate the Everquest community which was about as tight knit of a community as i have seen in any game. People will inevitably figure out who they are in spite of name change unless the offender actually changes their ways, which most don't and end up giving themselves away pretty quick by repeating the same behaviors. I know our server community pretty much figured out named changed characters pretty quick and it was usually posted somewhere on those forums. It was pretty obvious when people start questioning why all of a sudden there is a "new" max level warrior in top gear that no one has ever heard of before that something's fishy. Of course you could always post list of name changes - old character name and new character name - on the website like Everquest did: https://web.archive.org/web/20051012183335/http://eqlive.station.sony.com/renames/index.jsp, it wasn't cheap and they had some pretty strong restrictions https://web.archive.org/web/20051012103259/https://store.station.sony.com/eq_char_renames.
Reht said:Not sure how name changes would be pretty devastating to the community...they certainly didn't devastate the Everquest community which was about as tight knit of a community as i have seen in any game. People will inevitably figure out who they are in spite of name change unless the offender actually changes their ways, which most don't and end up giving themselves away pretty quick by repeating the same behaviors. I know our server community pretty much figured out named changed characters pretty quick and it was usually posted somewhere on those forums. It was pretty obvious when people start questioning why all of a sudden there is a "new" max level warrior in top gear that no one has ever heard of before that something's fishy. Of course you could always post list of name changes - old character name and new character name - on the website like Everquest did: https://web.archive.org/web/20051012183335/http://eqlive.station.sony.com/renames/index.jsp, it wasn't cheap and they had some pretty strong restrictions https://web.archive.org/web/20051012103259/https://store.station.sony.com/eq_char_renames.
Times have changed man, basing it on a 20 year old game back when people were nicer and had a little bit more online respect compared to these days is a bit of a stretch ;)
My comment was based around abuse of the name changing system in this modern day to continuously troll/bully etc. which could indeed be devestating to the community, other games have proven that.
Kilsin said:Times have changed man, basing it on a 20 year old game back when people were nicer and had a little bit more online respect compared to these days is a bit of a stretch ;)
My comment was based around abuse of the name changing system in this modern day to continuously troll/bully etc. which could indeed be devestating to the community, other games have proven that.
I am basing it on 20 years of actively playing many of these games, not some recollection of how the game was 17 years ago - so i am very well aware of how times have changed and the state of the communities in most of those games since i have actively participated in those communities. Name changing hasn't devastated a single community in any of the games i have played, which include ALL the big ones. Lack of punishment by game companies for trolling and bullying devastate game communities. There is no real need to change your name to hide your identity in most of these games because personal reputation really doesn't matter due to cross-server grouping, etc. Group oriented home server locked games like EQ and DAoC (which has no name change) don't have the same trolling problems that other games have because your personal reputation still matters and the people that grief still grief and don't bother changing their name while doing it. Why? Because like other games, the game companies don't do anything about them. If personal reputation matters in this game and VRI takes care of punishing people who break the rules then the whole name changing issue is irrelevent. This is a solution in search of a problem.
I'm of the mindset that it should be allowed but ONLY by GM and up to GM discretion. At least the GM would have some type of history....or I would hope they would have some type of history on past requests or if they have had issues with the player. There are several reasons that are valid for wanting to change a name ranging from "I mispelled my name...might of been to drunk" (I might of done this with my surname on my Ranger back in the day...), to more serious things like being harassed for whatever reason (Sometimes punishing the person who was doing the harassing is just not enough). What I am opposed to is paid name changes at the players desicretion.
Absolutely not. If you want to act like a fourtenn year old and agrivate others then so be it. Changing your name does not change you. And hideing behind an alias because you did a lot of bad things like ks and ninja looting etc will not make you a better person. Act like a grownup and a normal person or live with the consequenses. Or better- go to a new server and start all over again. It will make your current server all the better and may make you a more social player.
SHOW ME THE CHARFAX!
I suggest some sort of system that allows others to view the history of a particular character. You can review all the past notable events of that toon - the good, the bad, the ugly. This includes when, if at all, their name was changed and what it used to be. Also, of course, if/when they have been suspended. If/when they transferred from another server and what that server was. It should also show positive accomplishments like winning 1st place in a serverwide tournament or something. That way you can still change your name if you want but you can't erase the things you've done. I'd be hesitant for it to include other player-written comments like Yelp. Maybe that would help but it could also just become another form of trolling. Probably best to stick to dev-ordained events.
Reht said:Kilsin said:Times have changed man, basing it on a 20 year old game back when people were nicer and had a little bit more online respect compared to these days is a bit of a stretch ;)
My comment was based around abuse of the name changing system in this modern day to continuously troll/bully etc. which could indeed be devestating to the community, other games have proven that.I am basing it on 20 years of actively playing many of these games, not some recollection of how the game was 17 years ago - so i am very well aware of how times have changed and the state of the communities in most of those games since i have actively participated in those communities. Name changing hasn't devastated a single community in any of the games i have played, which include ALL the big ones. Lack of punishment by game companies for trolling and bullying devastate game communities. There is no real need to change your name to hide your identity in most of these games because personal reputation really doesn't matter due to cross-server grouping, etc. Group oriented home server locked games like EQ and DAoC (which has no name change) don't have the same trolling problems that other games have because your personal reputation still matters and the people that grief still grief and don't bother changing their name while doing it. Why? Because like other games, the game companies don't do anything about them. If personal reputation matters in this game and VRI takes care of punishing people who break the rules then the whole name changing issue is irrelevent. This is a solution in search of a problem.
It seems we have had different experiences, which is great but doesn't take away from the fact that the possibility is there to abuse the system and affect many other people from the actions of a few, which is one of the reasons why we probably won't allow name changes, but as Brad has said, it is not set in stone and is something we will continue to discuss internally.
I am not going to go into the discussion about companies "punishing" the offenders as I know how time-consuming and resource intensive it is to manage that, plus if the name change wasn't allowed in the first place there would be nothing to punish, players would be held accountable for their online behaviour and treated accordingly.
Players, in my opinion, should treat others the way they would like to be treated and live with the consequences.
Aradune said:Don't have an answer for this set-in stone -- too early for that. But the topic does bring up some serious issues.
If players can just arbitrarily change their name then it would be rather difficult for the community to recognize players who are out to ruin other people's experiences. There has to be responsibility. You should be able to become famous, but then infamous as well.
If you truly ruin your reputation by being a griefer and a jerk, then you should probably have to make an alt and assume a personality that fits in with the community.
So, in general, no to name changes. Specifics, however, like I said, TBD.
I like this. And if you REALLLYYY need to change your name for a legit reason, I'm sure GM's would be willing to hear you plead your case. A buddy of mine who returned to EQ rolled a new character named "Gianostal" (Nostalgia) then re-rolled a wiz named "Gianostaltu" which he eventually changed to "Giano." To me if you petition a GM for a name change for that reason I see no reason why they wouldn't grant your request. But completely changing to a new name, there should be no reason for that.