veyl Posted September 23, 2012 Share Posted September 23, 2012 Now that the servers have been consolidated once again, will the Bioware Development team do something about all of the "Names are unavailable" characters that have never been played // have no sign of being played? Place holding is one thing, taking up the name and never using it is another. We'll just call this a "spring cleaning", if you will. Any information would be well appreciated. sidenote: If we're aware of a character name that is taken but never played, can we petition to have it? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kourage Posted September 23, 2012 Share Posted September 23, 2012 Now that the servers have been consolidated once again, will the Bioware Development team do something about all of the "Names are unavailable" characters that have never been played // have no sign of being played? Place holding is one thing, taking up the name and never using it is another. We'll just call this a "spring cleaning", if you will. Any information would be well appreciated. sidenote: If we're aware of a character name that is taken but never played, can we petition to have it? Maybe they plan to level those characters, but haven't had the time yet. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dosadnik Posted September 23, 2012 Share Posted September 23, 2012 Now that the servers have been consolidated once again, will the Bioware Development team do something about all of the "Names are unavailable" characters that have never been played // have no sign of being played? Place holding is one thing, taking up the name and never using it is another. We'll just call this a "spring cleaning", if you will. Any information would be well appreciated. sidenote: If we're aware of a character name that is taken but never played, can we petition to have it? Spring cleaning in the autumn? That's a first! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Savro Posted September 23, 2012 Share Posted September 23, 2012 Maybe they plan to level those characters, but haven't had the time yet. It is possible but when they can, with a reasonable forewarning, tell something like "All the characters that do not reach level 10 in 2 months are going to be cancelled". You have a right to level up your character, other people have a right to not see a name reserved indefiniely by a zombie character... Otherwise with F2P will start to see impossible names because of lack of possibilities. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Yogol Posted September 23, 2012 Share Posted September 23, 2012 Now that the servers have been consolidated once again, will the Bioware Development team do something about all of the "Names are unavailable" characters that have never been played // have no sign of being played? Place holding is one thing, taking up the name and never using it is another. We'll just call this a "spring cleaning", if you will. Any information would be well appreciated. sidenote: If we're aware of a character name that is taken but never played, can we petition to have it? No, they won't. they even close threads about it. They made a bad mistake with all this naming mess, now we're stuck with it ( Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
utio Posted September 23, 2012 Share Posted September 23, 2012 Regardless of whether they play a character, or not, if they were the first to use the name, then what gives anyone the right to demand they have the name? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Savro Posted September 23, 2012 Share Posted September 23, 2012 sidenote: If we're aware of a character name that is taken but never played, can we petition to have it? Atm you can't, because no rule requires that created character are used... so no character can be deleted because of unuse. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jedi_Tyran Posted September 23, 2012 Share Posted September 23, 2012 I had a single level 1 placeholder on Jedi Covenant. (I have 4 level 50's and the 3 other slots are alts all above level 10.) I was forced to rename all of my sub level 50 characters. I think it is highly unlikely that any level 1 name keeper for any popular name still exists. It appears that Bioware's renaming algorithm does priortize who gets to keep a name to a higher level character. They'll never reveal the rules they came up with but I am telling you from my experience what you describe is not the case. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Savro Posted September 23, 2012 Share Posted September 23, 2012 Regardless of whether they play a character, or not, if they were the first to use the name, then what gives anyone the right to demand they have the name? ATM nothing, but rules can change if there is need. And going F2P with merged servers can have huge impact if an high percentage of names is simply "parked". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sepulhead Posted September 23, 2012 Share Posted September 23, 2012 they should never ever delete a char. take away there name only after giving that player plenty of warning that they will take away that name Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sorwen Posted September 23, 2012 Share Posted September 23, 2012 It is possible but when they can, with a reasonable forewarning, tell something like "All the characters that do not reach level 10 in 2 months are going to be cancelled". You have a right to level up your character, other people have a right to not see a name reserved indefiniely by a zombie character... Otherwise with F2P will start to see impossible names because of lack of possibilities.It should have been done before the merger. We might have been able to keep a few more names. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rankyn Posted September 23, 2012 Share Posted September 23, 2012 Most likely all the "common" placeholder names were already bumped in the server mergers. While it's true that there could be a name that was shared by a bunch of placeholders and one of them still has it, odds are that whoever ended up with it has a higher level character. That being said, once the influx of F2P players starts, there needs to be a system in place to reallocate names of long abandoned characters. Based on the way the merger conflicts was done, I suspect that the infrastructure for such a thing exists and all they'd have to do is run a periodic database sweep and flag characters that meet certain criteria (low level, unplayed for x number of weeks, etc) for a name change. Since it automatically gives them a temporary name, that would free up the base name for use. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Surakis Posted September 23, 2012 Share Posted September 23, 2012 It is possible but when they can, with a reasonable forewarning, tell something like "All the characters that do not reach level 10 in 2 months are going to be cancelled". You have a right to level up your character, other people have a right to not see a name reserved indefiniely by a zombie character... You have no rights in a video game..... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sorwen Posted September 23, 2012 Share Posted September 23, 2012 Most likely all the "common" placeholder names were already bumped in the server mergers. While it's true that there could be a name that was shared by a bunch of placeholders and one of them still has it, odds are that whoever ended up with it has a higher level character. First priority was given to people who already had to rename(I don't know what the next criteria was). Some level 50's lost their names to lower level characters. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dosadnik Posted September 23, 2012 Share Posted September 23, 2012 (edited) First priority was given to people who already had to rename(I don't know what the next criteria was). Some level 50's lost their names to lower level characters. Next one was probably most played character then highest level then amount of characters (aka if you have only 1 char you get priority over someone with 8). Just guessing. Edited September 23, 2012 by dosadnik Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Savro Posted September 23, 2012 Share Posted September 23, 2012 they should never ever delete a char. take away there name only after giving that player plenty of warning that they will take away that name I agrre, but if BW send one mail each month without seeing any activity for 6 months on that character can you agree with me that can that character is a zombie? I'm obviously talking about character in range lvl 1-10. character lvl 20, 30 or 50 should be never cancelled. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Savro Posted September 23, 2012 Share Posted September 23, 2012 (edited) You have no rights in a video game..... ok, let's say that this is true (really it isn't because you accept a contract before start playing but let's says so). This doesn't change nothing, call them implicit and expliti agreement, what changes? Edited September 23, 2012 by Savro Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ClavisN Posted September 23, 2012 Share Posted September 23, 2012 It is possible but when they can, with a reasonable forewarning, tell something like "All the characters that do not reach level 10 in 2 months are going to be cancelled". You have a right to level up your character, other people have a right to not see a name reserved indefiniely by a zombie character... Otherwise with F2P will start to see impossible names because of lack of possibilities. Well... I'd consider this awfully hostile by Bioware. And, well, reaching level 10 can usually be done in an evening - so, its just that you would force me and other owners of lowlevel chars to devote a few evenings to fend off your ill-motivated campaign to get your grubby little hands hands on our names. Why don't you just get used to name your new characters luke-five-nine or MyLeia-Twenty, as that is your fate with the advent of F2P anyway? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chuixupu Posted September 23, 2012 Share Posted September 23, 2012 They did prioritize character activity with this server merger, as it was stated by a dev post. Any level 1 "squatters" most likely lost their name. I know I lost the one name I was sitting on. Also, while everyone in my guild who had been logging on all their characters kept their names, the people that hasn't logged in months lost theirs, unless it was a very unique name. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
veyl Posted September 23, 2012 Author Share Posted September 23, 2012 Just to keep this post on track: This post is about level 1 characters that aren't being used // have no intentions on being used. I know players who still have level 1 names "reserved" even after the transfers and has had those names since December. They have no intention on leveling it anytime soon. The direction of this post is to find out if Bioware has any plans on what to do with those character names and if any form of a purge is going to happen. (This did happen with warcraft but as far as I could remember it only happened twice.) I know what it's like to lose a characters name that I played to 50 with (3 to be exact and lost my original legacy the first server move) and it absolutely sucked... Level 1's, however, I have no pity for. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
utio Posted September 23, 2012 Share Posted September 23, 2012 (edited) I agrre, but if BW send one mail each month without seeing any activity for 6 months on that character can you agree with me that can that character is a zombie? I'm obviously talking about character in range lvl 1-10. character lvl 20, 30 or 50 should be never cancelled. Let's say you can't play for a while, for whatever reason, and you were lvl 1-10. If in that time, someone comes along and decides they want your name. Are you ok with them having it? Edited September 23, 2012 by utio Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sepulhead Posted September 23, 2012 Share Posted September 23, 2012 I agrre, but if BW send one mail each month without seeing any activity for 6 months on that character can you agree with me that can that character is a zombie? I'm obviously talking about character in range lvl 1-10. character lvl 20, 30 or 50 should be never cancelled. with the way legacy works you need to reach the end of chapter 2 to unlock class buff. I like to level alts at the same time but now i have to reach the end of chapter 2 for 4 classes before i can continue with other classes. i have played with char that i didn't play with for months Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Savro Posted September 23, 2012 Share Posted September 23, 2012 Let's say you can't play for a while, for whatever reason, and you were lvl 1-10. If in that time, someone comes along and decides they want your name. Are you ok with them having it? if i didn't play for 6 months i'm perfectly ok with an other one having it. 6 months is, IMHO, a reasonable timeframe to suppose that I didn't care alot of that character. The alternative is that people starts activating all possible names with no cost when f2p comes, activating 4 characters simply because it is allowed then leaving the game. It is possible to look for differnt situations like: subscribed players do not lose any character anyway because it is supposed that they aren't zombies, f2p players will have to reach coruscant/dromund kass (or an other planet/certain level) in X months to lock the name. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Savro Posted September 23, 2012 Share Posted September 23, 2012 with the way legacy works you need to reach the end of chapter 2 to unlock class buff. I like to level alts at the same time but now i have to reach the end of chapter 2 for 4 classes before i can continue with other classes. i have played with char that i didn't play with for months understandable, BW can choose the right looking at their game statistics, that's not the problem. My concern is to avoid zombies. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pyrinoos Posted September 23, 2012 Share Posted September 23, 2012 Yea honestly BW's goal in all this is to prepare for F2P. They are hoping for a large number of people to come back to the game. These returning customers will be far more likely to 1. Maybe resub or 2. Spend money in the cash shop, if their names haven't all disappeared. If all their names are gone, then less new money for BW. Really what I wish they would do to clear some names is take all the unsubbed accounts and place them on their own new high population servers. Then only currently subbed players would be completing for names on their servers. Esstenially make a clone of each current server, copy over all accounts that are not currently subbed and give the new servers new names and keep them closed till F2P. Put the tech used for the first round of transfers in place for people that resub before F2P releases to move back to the appropriate current server. This IMO would have worked really well if done during the last round of transfers. They could have only moved current subs to our new servers and put non subscribers on place holder servers to see if they ever come back. A lot fewer names would have been lost and a lot more would have been available. But oh well too late for that now. Best we can do is enjoy the game we have. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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