I haven't claimed even once that I'm more important than anyone else who lost their names. Infact, I've made a point out of it so many times through this thread already that I don't understand how you could possibly get that idea. I agree that Bioware had to do something, but they rushed it. They could have waiting an extra month or two until they had the priority system in place. They could have at least told us about it so that people such as myself who give a damn about their names could have made the INFORMED DECISION to stay on their original server a while longer in order to at least have a chance at getting to keep their original names.

As evident in this thread? I don't care what anybody thinks about the names. Didn't you hear? The fact is, they're popular and coveted and that's why they're always taken. Also the very reason I wanted them in the first place. This thread isn't about whether or not the names are to your liking. It's about the fact that Bioware screwed me out of them as they did with tons of people who were on low-pop servers.

Ok, I'll try to explain this just one last time since you're very close now. Example: Reaper. Yes, someone else had the name on Nightmare Lands. I had it on Bao-Dur. There was no priority system in place at the time that said that if I was an active subscriber and level 50 (and I dunno how many other rules Bioware used to decide who got to keep their names during the second merge) I'd get to keep it over someone who had less "point" or whatever, for not being level 50, not being active, not subscribing... whatever. The reason I'm "upset" is the fact that there wasn't such a system in place. So, when I was forced to move off the tombstone/ghost-town called Bao-Dur, I lost the name Reaper. At the time, nobody knew there would be a second merge, with all new rules saying that if you were active, level 50, subscribing and on and on... you'd get to keep your name! If I had KNOWN about that, I would probably have stayed on Bao-Dur for an extra month or two doing dailies by myself just to get the chance to keep my original names. Instead, I got to keep the names I picked once I got onto Nightmare Lands.

Don't even start me on this crap again. There was no choice. We didn't even know there was gonna be a second transfer where there would be rules that would make me able to potentially keep my name if I stayed on the original server. The only thing we knew at the time was that everyone was leaving Bao-Dur. So I could stay on a dead server or join the rest of the population and keep playing the game like it was an MMO. Seriously, you gotta take the timeline into consideration here. The smart move at the time was to move as fast as you possibly could, to try to snag whatever was left of awesome names and maybe even get to keep some of your original ones. If this is all you have to point out then I've got nothing further to say on the matter. You consider it a choice? Fine. I don't.

Choice is a funny word to describe it. I was the GM of a guild. I had to move. The server was already dead, and everybody that was on it left as soon as they could. I'm not paying to play a singleplayer game here. This is an MMO. Choice? Gimme a god damn break.

And? I don't care about any of that. I chose the names because I wanted them.

I've lost all faith in your ability to understand anything at this point. But, by all means, keep trolling. Feed the animal. Keep my thread alive while I sleep at night.

Did you have a point to make?

Awe, you're just saying that. Secretly, there's a little Reaper in all of us. Seriously, I might have lost half my names. Maybe I'd just get to keep a couple... maybe just Reaper. I could live with that. As long as I got the same chance to keep that name as everyone else did! Come on, man. I'm talking about the principle of fair game here. Everyone who was on low-pop servers during the first merge, or "transfers" as they like to call it, got shafted. We got a fair chance to keep the names we were force into picking after we lost all our original names, though. Not that I care. By that time, the shafting process was already complete. I picked some more epic names (by my own standards) after the first move, and I didn't lose any of them. Do you know what that tells me? I would most likely have been able to keep Reaper and several others. That's what's killin' me here. And as I keep saying, this isn't all about me. The way Bioware handled the first merge was so completely screwed up.

Yeah, yeah. Take a vote from the entire human race and we'll see how many people prefer the name Mariad over Reaper. I don't care what any of these people here say. There's no arguing the fact those names are popular and coveted, because they're always taken, everywhere!

Since it's you, I'll repeat it just one more time. Regarding Bane... they took my stuff. I just went and got this from a thread I made on another forum, but it's will explain the finer points that seem lost on you. And please don't use this example to turn this thread into a debate about the sword of truth, guys. "The reason everyone hates EA and their Origin store isn't that they gave us an easy and convenient way to buy their games (digital distribution). The reason we hate the them is that they took their games OFF Steam and all the other digital stores people were used to and had grown attached to. We hate EA, so why don't we hate Blizzard? Blizzard did the same thing, only Blizzard never sold their games through other digital distributors. So, Blizzard just gave us a new way to buy their games. EA took our stuff!" Regarding how you think everyone got a fair chance... we didn't. We were left with the choice between staying in a ghost-town or losing our names. If I had stayed on Bao-Dur, my main be still be named REAPER-ER-ER-ER-ERRRH! And I would have had a fair chance to keep that name when they finally decided to do a second merge. What part of this is hard for you to understand? Call it whatever the hell you want, but they forced my hand, as they did for all of us who were on low-pop servers. Regarding the last paragraph you quoted, yes... evidently (by the words the reply you just quoted) I was fully aware that there could only be ONE!

Hey, I have the energy to spare, and the game isn't very entertaining now that we're all just sitting around waiting for the expansion to reset all our efforts. Besides, I'm angry, remember?

Because I didn't need to, man! I got in first. I got the dead-sexiest award-winning line-up or iconic, epic, awesome, helvetes, amazing names EVER-ER-ER-ER-ERRRRH! I've heard people say this has been done in other MMOs (server merges, I mean), but I've never had it happen in any MMO I've ever played. So why the jumping, freaking, refrigerator-magnet would I ever plan to lose them? I can be creative just like the next person, but I'd rather get in first and get the most coveted names... and nobody's gonna come up in here and tell me those names aren't popular, and awesome and... ehm...

I don't even know what that means, man.

AMG, blablabla, not original, bla. I'm sorry, I don't mean to be offensive here, but this name crap is so last page. I'll take part of the blame on me since I obviously should have explained things a lot better and in deeper detail in the original post. I already said I'm not a new-age, neo-hippie, l33t-geek cyberwizard-warrior. I don't need my character names to be original. I got Hoodling from being original, which is mix of a Hoodlum and a Gibberling. I'd hardly say Hoodling got anything on REAPER-ER-ER-ERRRH! Nor does any other new-age, neo-hippie, l33t-geek cyberwizard-warrior name. This isn't about whether or not I'd ACTUALLY GET TO KEEP those names. I wasn't even given a fair chance to keep them because there was no priority system in place. It was just a complete panick-attack by Bioware when they realized their servers were all ghost-towns, man! Come on! I've been a very active player! I've been actively subscribing since launch and I had something like 4 level 50 characters at the time of the first transfer. I was doing dailies on 2-3 toons a day and raiding up to 7 days a week on my main. Even on a per-character-basis I would have had enough time logged in on each and every one of them to get to keep at the very least ONE of those names. I have zero doubt about that. But even if I didn't get to keep any of the names, at least I would take solace in the fact that I got a fair chance just like the people who were originally on the last 2 servers (The Red Eclipse and Nightmare Lands).

I simply love replies like these! It keeps my thread alive.

My point was that these names are extremely popular and thereby very hard to get, and boy did I get lots of them! People like myself who care about names, we sit up late a night waiting for the servers to pop up when the game launches just so that we can get on first and reserve names. Other people may not care, but that's not my problem. I don't care what anybody has to say about those names, they're epic and awesome (apart from maybe Grace), and it's still got nothing to do with the point I was trying to make in this thread except that it was a very rare collection of names of it's type. That being extremely popular names. Now, please get done with the part about the names already.

I have no further reply to any of this. It's all been convered in the thread you just quoted and some of the stuff is taken out of context, and the rest is pure gibberish. My names were epic. Don't care what anyone says about it. I'm Batman!

You hit the nail on the head there.

Allow me to set this thread back on a proper course now. As much as I'm ticked off by losing the name Bane, as I've pointed out myself, it's part of the SW lore and thereby I fully understand that it "shouldn't" be allowed. What made me angry was the way I lost it, and the fact that it was the very last of my original names. I wasn't asked or told to rename Bane, I got cheated out of it by Bioware's incompetent customer service representatives after they had already assured me that I could keep the name. This was just the last straw. If Bioware had a proper system of priority in place by the time of the first merge, everyone who was on low-pop servers would have been given a fair chance to keep their names to this day. Like I said, if I had been stupid enough to stay on that tombstone of a server Bao-Dur, I would have been given a fair chance to keep my names during the second merge. But, since I had already renamed my characters by that time, I only had a chance of keeping names I didn't even want in the first place. And as I've also said, I'm far from being the only one that got "Screwed over by Bioware" when this crap when down. So what do I want now? That's the question, right? The only thing Bioware could possibly do to rectify the situation and compensate me, would be to give me a fair chance to get back my original names. And I want them to give that same opportunity to everyone who was on low-pop servers who lost their original names when Bioware forced us to leave our original servers. You could argue that they didn't force us, but that simply won't fly. We were given the opportunity to stay on dead servers or move to a new server that somewhat resembled an MMO environment. I had a guild to consider, so I didn't have the luxury of staying, not that I would have stayed anyway seing as everyone else left! I'm not seeking sympathy or looking for a handout in cartel coins or free game time from Bioware, I want them to do the right thing. This is a matter of principles and nothing else. Do I really expect Bioware to listen to me and change anything? Of course not, and that's why this riff is on the official forums and not in their mail-box. I'm sure there's a whole crap-ton of people out there who couldn't care less about their names, but that means absolutely nothing to me, nor does it to anyone else who lost their names the same way I did. If you don't care about your names, fine! If you don't mind losing your names, fine! You don't even have to reply to this thread since you obviously don't give a crap. Honestly, it seems like some people here have nothing better to do than to crawl around forums and look for opportunities to display their pathological need to elevate themselves by any means possible. Oppinions on whether or not the names I had were infact "EPIC" or not matters diddley squat to me, and it has nothing to do with the point I was trying to make in my original post. And just one more thing... some of you people seriously need to have a coke and a smile and chill the **** out!

Of all the things I was talking about in my OP, what people got hung up on was whether or not the names I had were indeed "epic" or not. That's so far removed from the point of this thread that I don't quite know where to start pointing it out to people. The point is, they were my names, and I liked them. I chose each and every one of those names for a reason. The first bunch of replies (and most replies since) to this thread has had absolutely nothing to do with the message I wanted to convey with my OP. Is there any moderation on these forums what so ever? It's a beautiful thing to see someone come along amongst a sea of stupidity to restore my faith in the intelligence of my fellow man by managing to understand the simple point I was trying to make. But then people like yourself reset the balance to zero with mad dribble like this, taken completely out of context. So, once again, just for you... here's my point: Names are important to me. They took my names. It happened a while back. I'm still angry. The End!

All this patent-troll crap and the frivolous litigation that follows should be kept to the real world. There's no way in hell anyone can make money of a trademark/brand name by using the name on a silly little MMO character, and that's what copyrights are all about, isn't it?

Now there's an actual helpful suggestion. Thank you. I might just do that.

I'm not actually looking for anything from the community, least of all sympathy. I fully expected this to ignite a fire in the fanboy camp, but that's entirely inconsequential to me. I made this post in the hopes that someone at Bioware would read it, and realize that I'm still deleriously angry! I want them to know that when they pull this kind crap it isn't easily forgotten. They may own my account and everything on it, but that doesn't mean I'll sit idle and accept it in silence. The only thing I could possibly do here was to make a public stink about it. Mission complete!

I agree with everything you said there. The point some people are making about the name Bane being prohibited isn't why I lost it. Hell, they even told me I could keep it since I actually created the character way before it got on the prohibited names-list. If they told me I had to rename the character because the name wasn't allowed, I'd still be angry, but I'd accept it and move on. The thing that's making me crazy here is the way they steamrolled their playerbase, and some people (like myself) twice over. We lost our guildname as well with the second merge, and finally their complete incompetence led the loss of the last name I gave a crap about. Obviously I care deeply about the names I pick for my characters. Picking a name isn't something I do randomly. I'm not even going to play a character that I don't consider to have some kind of identity. For me, that's part of the immersion that connects me to my character and my character to the storyline aspect of the game. I simply cannot believe the amount of trolls on these forums.