I liked the system in EQ/EQ2 where you got a surname at level 20 as well, Kiron. With what we know for Pantheon, we'll be getting a surname at character creation. The uncertainty is whether or not you'll be able to create a character with just one name.
All things considered, I don't mind them forcing a first and last name on character creation (despite enjoying having characters with a single name myself). I feel the pros outweigh the cons in the long-run, especially considering that naming conflicts will arise and be a contentious issue for the devs. Forcing a last name causes the least amount of "harm" while reducing the possibility of naming conflicts by a vast amount. Makes things much smoother in regards to name reservations, launch day rush, and the inevitability of server mergers.
A really nice system I'd like to have with that is a UI setting to hide last names (either for just yourself or for all players). The option would only affect things for yourself, so if you hid your last name others could still see it unless they hid it in their UI, too. If you wanted to see someone's last name after you hid them all, you could just right click their character and "inspect" them to see their full name/bio or whatever. I feel like that would be a nice compromise that would further ease the frustrations of having to choose a surname.
randomrob82 said:Not very immersive if every wizard you see is a Gandolf or Merlin.
Well I do like surname alot, but I can understand people who don't wont them, that said I really hope they will implement the name filtering system as in EQ vanilla where u could not choose name from fantasy related source (as Gandalf or Merlin) and also GMs* had the power to change the names that violated the policy ( but got through the filter maybe adding a letter to it).
As a side note I would like to plead for complex suname like " First'Second " , I was so disappointed when I got back to EQ and found out that I could not use them anymore (I even had a discussion with the curtomer support since my olde toons still had those surnames).
Lastly it was really a sence of achivement to get to level 20 to be able to get a surname too bad I have to choose it at character creation (Damn now my toon creation time just increased 50%)
Walpurgis said: I like the ideas of surnames. Made my character feel more complete. They should add an option to hide the last name for.those that don't want one.
I approve of Surnames. I'm excited to see the Devs of Pantheon not catering to certain types of gamers, which is one reason I loved EQ so much. They created a hardcore, unforgiving when you die, group oriented game. I've seen many carebear type of gamers who did nothing but complain over how hard this or that is, how it should be this way or that way. Then these gamers got their wish with games like WoW, and totally dumbed down the mmorpg genre ever since.
Now people are complaining about having to choose surnames,, really? I mean no disrespect, but may I ask what the problem is with creating a unique character?