Community building gone wrong.

[Pcolapat]

Before I begin. I didn't have to change my name this time. I have had to change my name twice in this game though, so I know how many feel about it.

 

I don't think bioware fully understands how people feel about having to change their name though. I don't think they fully understand what it does to their online communities either. A player spends months achieving things and interacting with other players in the game. They begin to develop an identity within a community. Once people begin to recognize other people in the game, you have the beginnings of a community.

 

When you force server merges and make players change their names, you are destroying the foundations of the community you so desperately want to evolve in this game. That is why people get upset over having to change their name. They have to then spend months reestablishing a new name, a new identity within the community. It is a tangible thing that you are taking away from players.

 

I am not going to rant about this forever. I made the point I wanted to make. Bioware the next time you make an MMO, do whatever you have to do to ensure you don't snatch players names from them. It hurts your game.

[TheBBP]

It's a "Damned if you do, damned if you don't!" situation. These changes were needed and it came at the sacrifice of some character names.

 

Overall, I'd say we came out pretty good.

[DarthFamine]

/signed

 

Started on mind trick in early access, had to mode lost my name.

had to move again lost another name.

 

It's enough that I have considered unsubscribing

[KyaniteD]

I agree. There seems to be a profound lack of understanding of (server) communities.

 

If you had to change your name (once, or even twice) and your legacy isn't unique anymore, what's left of your identity?

 

 

Also, there seems to be a lack of understanding of most players' desire to distinguish themselves in some way from the rest. This has little to do with "special snowflake" and a lot with creating an identity and means of recognition in a crowd of strangers.

[Xatasha]

If you get so attached to a name in a game that you threaten to quit over it then maybe you need to take a break from the game anyway.

 

My advice for the company would be to add last names at character creation. This would allow for many more naming options

[NinjaApacHe]

I agree. There seems to be a profound lack of understanding of (server) communities.

 

If you had to change your name (once, or even twice) and your legacy isn't unique anymore, what's left of your identity?

 

 

Also, there seems to be a lack of understanding of most players' desire to distinguish themselves in some way from the rest. This has little to do with "special snowflake" and a lot with creating an identity and means of recognition in a crowd of strangers.

 

Maybe your identity is what you are called in RL?

[Ephesia]

You need to realize that the server merges were a necessity, and there was no other way to go about it.

[Master-Nala]

You need to realize that the server merges were a necessity, and there was no other way to go about it.

 

Of course there was. They could have added the ability to have a two word name. That right there, would have eliminated much of the complaining. And it would have had the secondary effect of dealing with an old complaint of not wanting all your characters to have the same last name.

 

So Joe the Jedi could be Joe Boxer the Jedi while Joe the Trooper could become Joe Frazier the Trooper. But to do that, Bioware would have to understand that this is an important issue for many people. I only lost a few names, none of my most played so I'm OK, but people have a right to be upset about changing the identity of a character they sunk a lot of time into.

[Magyarian]

/agree

 

I have seen how name changes create an opportunity for the crap players to get a free pass with a new identity and I have seen good players lose reputation (i.e. and the play enjoyment that comes with it) because of name changes.

 

The serious core players of a game know reputation matters. Names are how they are recognized. Changing those names means the previous two sentences mean nothing.

 

Oh and if players can pay to change names, the entry of idiots will kill your community.

 

Bioware, if you listen to your parent EA on making money, you will fail at community and ruin your brand name forever. Listen or don't, it's your future.

[AshenK]

Tell the truth? This game and other MMO's should do what STO does.

 

For those of you who have yet to play STO here's how naming works. You have an account name that kinda looks like a email. @sampleaccountname gives you an idea. That is the only thing that has to be unique, as for a name? You can take whatever you want for a first, last and even a middle name.

 

And know what? That helps!

 

For one any friends you have you can just put that account name down on a friends list. So hey if you have a buddy who's making a new Alt and you need to get a hold of him? You have it right there. For role players? That would be something from heaven. Really part of my fault with TOR is the first name has to be unique and it's first come first serve. Put a system like that in? Congrats you can have the same first name.

 

If BioWare was smart (or if the players pushed for it) this could be easy to do. Just have it with a legacy name.

[FiveBBassist]

A wise man once said, "You would be surprised to learn how little people think of you." Perhaps you hold on to your reputation, which is far smaller than you think, too much. Yes, I understand growing connections and aquiring affiliations, but they're just names. The whole world isn't going to be in awe that "Billy use to be a great lvl 50 player; now he's a lvl 15 noob." There will be very few people who even notice your name is gone, other than your friends, who would get your new name I'm sure. Not to mention, we are now in a broader enviroment. Even if you were known for being the best tank on your server before, that might be less that 10% of the people you are now playing with.

[andreas_barth]

Before I begin. I didn't have to change my name this time. I have had to change my name twice in this game though, so I know how many feel about it.

 

I don't think bioware fully understands how people feel about having to change their name though. I don't think they fully understand what it does to their online communities either. A player spends months achieving things and interacting with other players in the game. They begin to develop an identity within a community. Once people begin to recognize other people in the game, you have the beginnings of a community.

 

When you force server merges and make players change their names, you are destroying the foundations of the community you so desperately want to evolve in this game. That is why people get upset over having to change their name. They have to then spend months reestablishing a new name, a new identity within the community. It is a tangible thing that you are taking away from players.

 

I am not going to rant about this forever. I made the point I wanted to make. Bioware the next time you make an MMO, do whatever you have to do to ensure you don't snatch players names from them. It hurts your game.

 

Well. Playing on empty servers is even worse. So sometimes hard desicsions have to be made.

 

Some people having to change names > people playing on empty servers.

 

Deal with it.

[Mowermanx]

I learnt a long time ago about naming in MMO's, and me thinks a lot of people have just learnt the same lesson.

[patchew]

Before I begin. I didn't have to change my name this time. I have had to change my name twice in this game though, so I know how many feel about it.

 

I don't think bioware fully understands how people feel about having to change their name though. I don't think they fully understand what it does to their online communities either. A player spends months achieving things and interacting with other players in the game. They begin to develop an identity within a community. Once people begin to recognize other people in the game, you have the beginnings of a community.

 

When you force server merges and make players change their names, you are destroying the foundations of the community you so desperately want to evolve in this game. That is why people get upset over having to change their name. They have to then spend months reestablishing a new name, a new identity within the community. It is a tangible thing that you are taking away from players.

 

I am not going to rant about this forever. I made the point I wanted to make. Bioware the next time you make an MMO, do whatever you have to do to ensure you don't snatch players names from them. It hurts your game.

 

Couldn't agree less. Whats to stop you building a reputation again? did you intend to build a reputation and then turn in to something else once you had done so?

No, so whats the problem?

Be more inventive with your names and you won't have a problem. If you call your character hansolo, dont be surprised that someone else in the world also did that. If you called it xxxawesomedpsxxx, there is also a good chance someone else is that uninventive.

With moving to a new server, your reputation is non-existant anyway. The only people who know you are the ones that followed you to a new server anyway.

i guess you will have to put as much effort that you did on your initial server (and were going to continue to do, if you were still there) on your new server. So the amount of effort you had established as your requirement to maintain your reputation on your old server will now be used to establish your reputation on the new server ..

People earn reputations very very quickly within computer game 'communities' .. it wont take you more than 1 heroic/OP/comment in general chat to earn a reputation.

 

Don't forget, you also have your legacy name (as to why its not unique any more, i cant understand) to identify yourself from your personal char name. So your friends will know who you are, anyway. From that point of view, yes it is unbelievably stupid of BIO to make them non-unique.

 

I do not belong to a guild and have zero interest in doing so. I dont do premade pvp and have never done 8mans/16 mans. I established a rep on my server very quickly by playing my character well and being polite and friendly .. i thus got added to friends list. If anyone is rude or makes ignorant comments in general, i put them on ignore. They ruined their reputation with me and thus suffered. You will establish a reputation very quickly indeed.

 

In general though, i couldn't agree less with the OP

[Mytilus]

Dear Blizzard

 

I had to change my name after a forced server transfer and as a result i am going to change your name, instead of bioware i will now refer to you as blizzard. Although this name is taken in another world it was avilable here.

[Silvafox]

Before I begin. I didn't have to change my name this time. I have had to change my name twice in this game though, so I know how many feel about it.

 

I don't think bioware fully understands how people feel about having to change their name though. I don't think they fully understand what it does to their online communities either. A player spends months achieving things and interacting with other players in the game. They begin to develop an identity within a community. Once people begin to recognize other people in the game, you have the beginnings of a community.

 

When you force server merges and make players change their names, you are destroying the foundations of the community you so desperately want to evolve in this game. That is why people get upset over having to change their name. They have to then spend months reestablishing a new name, a new identity within the community. It is a tangible thing that you are taking away from players.

 

I am not going to rant about this forever. I made the point I wanted to make. Bioware the next time you make an MMO, do whatever you have to do to ensure you don't snatch players names from them. It hurts your game.

 

Totally AGREE

 

They just don't "get it".

[Etheric]

"My advice for the company would be to add last names at character creation. This would allow for many more naming options"

 

This was advice given to the developers prior to launch, as well as a myriad of other things that they either chose to ignore or dismiss as "they" knew better. Well "they" made their bed and now "they" can lay in it.

[Eillack]

Tell the truth? This game and other MMO's should do what STO does.

 

For those of you who have yet to play STO here's how naming works. You have an account name that kinda looks like a email. @sampleaccountname gives you an idea. That is the only thing that has to be unique, as for a name? You can take whatever you want for a first, last and even a middle name.

 

And know what? That helps!

 

For one any friends you have you can just put that account name down on a friends list. So hey if you have a buddy who's making a new Alt and you need to get a hold of him? You have it right there. For role players? That would be something from heaven. Really part of my fault with TOR is the first name has to be unique and it's first come first serve. Put a system like that in? Congrats you can have the same first name.

 

If BioWare was smart (or if the players pushed for it) this could be easy to do. Just have it with a legacy name.

 

STO is such a horrid thing to copy....that naming system turned out to be just as much of an annoyance. Too many unrestrictions...

[Majspuffen]

Does no one remember what Bioware talked about months and years prior to the game launch? I was following this game every week. I checked every fan friday update. In one of those fan friday updates they mentioned the issues with unique names and that they were going to find ways to work around that, because no one liked to have their name occupied on a server. I cannot find the exact quote because I guess it does not exist anymore, but they said something along those lines.

 

What happened to those people? Did they just give up and decide that they were content of copying how WoW does things? :/

[Pheroras]

I agree. There seems to be a profound lack of understanding of (server) communities.

 

If you had to change your name (once, or even twice) and your legacy isn't unique anymore, what's left of your identity?

 

 

Also, there seems to be a lack of understanding of most players' desire to distinguish themselves in some way from the rest. This has little to do with "special snowflake" and a lot with creating an identity and means of recognition in a crowd of strangers.

 

When TSW came out a couple months back they sidestepped this naming problem nicely. First and last names didn't need to be unique, but people (players) were known by a third, middle, name that could be specific and unique.

Edited September 19, 2012 by Pheroras

[Lord_Ghaleon]

Maybe people would be less attached to their names if that wasn't the only distinguishing thing about their characters on screen. Let's face it, most everyone wears the same exact equipment so they can participate in end game content. In fact, on my server, you can't even join a Nightmare Pilgrim run unless you're wearing Rakata/Black Hole gear. The character customization on this game is lacking in comparison to other MMOs. Especially when you come from a game like City of Heroes, where your costume and appearance was your defining feature for uniqueness, not your power set. Yes, different system, but point remains regardless. People want to feel unique and their uniqueness just got stomp all over. Were the merges necessary? I think some were for the dead ones, but as far as I could tell servers like Canderous Ordo were doing fine. Not sure why they didn't just merged the dead ones onto existing ones. I guess we'll see in the future if this was a good thing. I'm willing to bet that when F2P hits, if there is an influx of players, people will start to complain about overpopulation again and then we're back to asking for more servers. Maybe folks at BW/EA are assuming that there's going to be a massive number of folks leaving. But if they are assuming that's the case, why aren't they trying to address the problem of people leaving? That seems like what a business would try to do...keep their customer base.

[KyaniteD]

A wise man once said, "You would be surprised to learn how little people think of you." Perhaps you hold on to your reputation, which is far smaller than you think, too much. Yes, I understand growing connections and aquiring affiliations, but they're just names. The whole world isn't going to be in awe that "Billy use to be a great lvl 50 player; now he's a lvl 15 noob." There will be very few people who even notice your name is gone, other than your friends, who would get your new name I'm sure. Not to mention, we are now in a broader enviroment. Even if you were known for being the best tank on your server before, that might be less that 10% of the people you are now playing with.

 

You know, if this were the only "small" (depends on POV) issue, I would agree. But it's only one of many, and in every thread about these "small things" there are people like you basically saying it's overrated and to get over it. I would agree if every one of those were a single occurrence. But we've been asked/forced to accept, accommodate, humor, shrug off, get over and put up with so many small things by now that even a patient person like myself gets annoyed. If you keep adding straws, eventually the camel's back will break. The small things *do* matter, especially in numbers.

 

And if someone like yourself doesn't care about community, names, people and their behavior/reputation then that's your style, but apparently to many it does matter, and that doesn't seem to be anything unusual in an MMO.

 

Maybe your identity is what you are called in RL?

In RL, I am identified by a combination of my face and my name, neither of which is displayed in game. But this is not about my real-life (passport) identity, it's about my identity as a player with a certain attitude/behavior/history/affiliations and my place in a community. I'm talking about identity as something unambiguously referring to one player, just as my real life identity should unambiguously refer to only one person.

[Darth_Rathus]

Dear Blizzard

 

I had to change my name after a forced server transfer and as a result i am going to change your name, instead of bioware i will now refer to you as blizzard. Although this name is taken in another world it was avilable here.

 

Best post so far

[Yogol]

I agree. There seems to be a profound lack of understanding of (server) communities.

 

<nod>

 

They don't have a clue how to handle MMO players, not a clue.

[CommunitySupport]

Hello everyone! Because we already have a thread for discussion of this issue, we're going to close this thread and ask you to join in the conversation there: http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=533429.

 

Please note this post from Community Manager from Joveth Gonzalez about the topic:

 

When naming conflicts occur due to the consolidation, players are given priority based on a variety of factors such as character play time and if they have already had to rename their characters as part of the first character transfer program back in June. Please do keep in mind that this does not encompass all of the factors taken into consideration, but those are an example of the major ones.