Allow duplicate character names

[microstyles]

This has been suggested before, but the last one I saw was years ago so I made another.

Currently, character names must be unique on the server they are created/transferred to. I believe this should be changed for several primary reasons:

• It is an unnecessary barrier for new players, right at the start of the game
• The issue will continue to get worse as time goes on

Bioware would also benefit from this immediately since players would spend a bunch of CC on name changes. 

No solution would be perfect. I'll give my suggestion based on what I've read so far but I'm open to other ideas and criticisms.

Generated unique IDs:

• 5-6 alphanumeric characters, probably associated to the account rather than the character
• Visible by default in all places character name is right now, except above the character's head. May want to create a toggle hotkey to see them or not. This would just be for whether the player can see them or not, you should not be able to 'hide' yours.
• Whispering (and similar functions) could be done by this ID by itself. May want to add something that allows whisper by character name, and just fails if there are duplicates online, showing the IDs of the duplicates.

[Nee-Elder]

4 minutes ago, microstyles said:

This has been suggested before, but the last one I saw was years ago so I made another.

Great, so you decided to make yet another DUPLICATE of the same suggestion BioWare has denied since 2012-->https://forums.swtor.com/topic/374074-abolish-unique-character-names/

See the irony here?  (hint: title of your thread)

Also, you might enjoy reading this related thread: https://forums.swtor.com/topic/872163-where-can-i-find-rules-for-naming-toons-and-legacy-names/

And finally, you should be aware that  player LEGACY names can already be duplicated....and.... BioWare has already added those ridiculous  'alt symbols'  (which are just another tool for trolls & thieves to avoid detection) .   Not to mention the fact  they (BioWare) has also recently up'd the character-limit to 21 , as mentioned in this community guide: https://swtorista.com/articles/swtor-naming-characters/

[microstyles]

15 minutes ago, Nee-Elder said:

Great, so you decided to make yet another DUPLICATE of the same suggestion BioWare has denied since 2012-->https://forums.swtor.com/topic/374074-abolish-unique-character-names/

See the irony here?  (hint: title of your thread)

Yeah sorry I'm still getting the hang of what is and is not appropriate here for a new topic. Most forums frown on necromancy but here nobody seems to mind. 

Has bioware officially said they're against it?

Also no irony here remember I'm in favor of duplicates so that's right on brand.

[SteveTheCynic]

1 hour ago, microstyles said:

Generated unique IDs:

• 5-6 alphanumeric characters, probably associated to the account rather than the character

Making it based on the account will generate a ***lot*** of opposition, frequently based on people not wanting ==> that character over there to be obviously linked to <== that character that gets occasional harrassment.

1 hour ago, microstyles said:

• Visible by default in all places character name is right now, except above the character's head. May want to create a toggle hotkey to see them or not. This would just be for whether the player can see them or not, you should not be able to 'hide' yours.

Even worse.  We can't hide it, even if our name isn't a duplicate.  No thanks.

[Nee-Elder]

1 hour ago, microstyles said:

Yeah sorry I'm still getting the hang of what is and is not appropriate here for a new topic.

No worries!  And remember  forum search is your friend.

1 hour ago, microstyles said:

 Most forums frown on necromancy but here nobody seems to mind.

hmm i think  ESO  even has playable characters & class  based on that ^ .   But anyways, here in BioWare-land , it's  sort of a case-by-case basis  tbqh.   For example, the other day someone  oddly  decided to flame another player's  thread....from 9 YEARS ago  lol .  And yet, the post still remains.   /shrug

But generally speaking, as far as forum terms-of-service  states at least,  i don't believe we're  technically outlawed from linking or referring to  'necro'  threads that are say 2+ years old & beyond....as long as  it isn't to purposefully  mislead other players about a quest or combat system or whatever.

1 hour ago, microstyles said:

Has bioware officially said they're against it?

Against what?  Necro'ing  old threads?   Or  against  implementing  DUPLICATE or repeating  player-names?

If it's the latter , then i'm not sure if  BioWare  made a post about it saying  "no duplicate names ever!!"  but i deduced it , based on their other actions i mentioned above ^^ from the past 10+ years.  ( re:  alt symbols, Legacy names , increased characters, etc. etc. ) .

1 hour ago, microstyles said:

Also no irony here remember I'm in favor of duplicates so that's right on brand.

Ahh ok,  well darn then.   Is there such a thing as  reverse  irony?

p.s.  i don't  particularly think your  OP  suggestion is a wise idea , since i already  disagree with BioWare's  decision to allow  redundant/copied  Legacy names. (but i understand why they allowed them, cuz of  family members or guild members wanting to  RP  same  'last' names or bloodlines or whatever )

[microstyles]

15 hours ago, SteveTheCynic said:

Making it based on the account will generate a ***lot*** of opposition, frequently based on people not wanting ==> that character over there to be obviously linked to <== that character that gets occasional harrassment.

This seems like a relatively minor downside to me, though you may be right about the opposition regardless. People seem to be very resistant to change around here. Hopefully good will from players being allowed to use whatever names they wanted would outweigh it.

15 hours ago, SteveTheCynic said:

Even worse.  We can't hide it, even if our name isn't a duplicate.  No thanks.

This is probably the biggest problem with the suggestion. I included it because you yourself brought up some very good points in the thread I probably should have just continued. You explain there why allowing people to hide the ID would not be a good idea.

As I said originally there is no perfect solution, including leaving the system as is. In that thread I linked, you were of the opinion that the current system was the 'least bad'. Even if you still feel that way now you may not in the future, as names become increasingly difficult to make.

[SteveTheCynic]

3 hours ago, microstyles said:

This seems like a relatively minor downside to me, though you may be right about the opposition regardless. People seem to be very resistant to change around here. Hopefully good will from players being allowed to use whatever names they wanted would outweigh it.

Ultimately this part of my comment wasn't based on whether it's a good or bad idea, but what (based on past suggestions that end up making account identification part of the displayed name) the views of the other people here on the forum would be.  Some of the objections are based on the extra identifying information being useful for people who want to harass or whatever other players, and all the goodwill in the world won't change that.

3 hours ago, microstyles said:

This is probably the biggest problem with the suggestion. I included it because you yourself brought up some very good points in the thread I probably should have just continued. You explain there why allowing people to hide the ID would not be a good idea.

That contradiction (it's bad if they allow the identifier to be hidden, and it's bad if they don't allow it to be hidden) is my primary driver for disliking this sort of change.  Ultimately, ever since a 1.X patch in September 2012, when they deuniquified legacy names, there has been no feasible existing identifier for disambiguating character names if character names are also ambiguous, in part because even before the legacy name became ambiguous, it would have been subject to the "it shows that my characters are both mine" problem.

3 hours ago, microstyles said:

As I said originally there is no perfect solution, including leaving the system as is. In that thread I linked, you were of the opinion that the current system was the 'least bad'. Even if you still feel that way now you may not in the future, as names become increasingly difficult to make.

If I had to pick a single solution that might be better, it would be to be inspired by The Secret World, where your character has a three-part name.  Taking the example of my main character there, Melanie "Truckslayer" Roberts, we see the three parts : First name (not unique), "nickname" (unique) and last name (not unique).  Any character in TSW can have Melanie as a first name, and anyone can have Roberts as a last name, and even the combination of Melanie Roberts is not necessarily unique.  The nickname is of necessity unique (something must be) but it isn't tied to my account - each of my characters has a separate nickname.

Why must there be a player-readable unique identifier?  Well, because we (the players) like to be able to type people's characters' names into e.g. a /invite or /friend or /whisper command.

So yes, there would still be a battle for the "cool" nicknames, but the overall "RPG name" of a character (e.g. Melanie Roberts) would not be involved in that battle.

And in general, I haven't had problems picking names for my characters ever since they opened up having a "First Last" format (with a single space) in addition to just "Mononym".

[bluehufsa]

 

Uh let's say duplicate names will be allowed, how will that work? I need to send an in-game mail to Mary Smith, if there are 10 Mary with legacy name Smith, how do I know which one is the one I'm trying to contact? 

[microstyles]

3 hours ago, bluehufsa said:

 

Uh let's say duplicate names will be allowed, how will that work? I need to send an in-game mail to Mary Smith, if there are 10 Mary with legacy name Smith, how do I know which one is the one I'm trying to contact? 

As described by my original suggestion,  you would send to the generated ID instead.

Based on the other's responses though I'm thinking of a less heavy-handed means of addressing my initial concerns. I'll update later.

[microstyles]

12 hours ago, SteveTheCynic said:

And in general, I haven't had problems picking names for my characters ever since they opened up having a "First Last" format (with a single space) in addition to just "Mononym".

Yeah I think I was discounting using two names too much. I figured the legacy name already functioned as a surname. Two names mitigates my second concern from the original post pretty well (problem gets worse over time). 

That just leaves the first concern (barrier for new players). This could probably be better addressed by giving them more information at character creation. Something they could click on or hover over to give them the basic naming options, since I don't think most would expect they could use an apostrophe, dash, or space (should probably not mention alt-code characters). They should also improve the dialogs when they put in an invalid name, since those are overly vague.

[SteveTheCynic]

12 hours ago, microstyles said:

They should also improve the dialogs when they put in an invalid name, since those are overly vague.

No, they should remain vague, because "invalid" means "the automated in-game censor doesn't like it", and it's best not to give too much information on how to skate along the edges of that.  Such censors have to be a bit more permissive than the rules say because an excessive rate of false positives (names returned as "invalid" when they aren't) is at least as annoying as the occasional "Dark Wossname" on The Leviathan.  (In French, the Star Wars translators picked "Dark" as the translation of "Darth", but I play with the game in English so I notice them immediately.)

[SteveTheCynic]

12 hours ago, microstyles said:

That just leaves the first concern (barrier for new players). This could probably be better addressed by giving them more information at character creation. Something they could click on or hover over to give them the basic naming options,

Or something more like the options in Guild Wars 2 where there's a floaty box that shows the name-format approvability of the name you're typing as you type it.  (Doesn't report availability or censor-validity, mind you, just a bit of info about what *formats* are allowed and whether you've stepped outside that.)

[DWho]

Personally, I'd prefer not to see a thousand Luke Skywalkers and Revans running around regardless of what "hidden" identifier would keep them distinct. It's already bad enough with the use of special characters in the names.

[bluehufsa]

1 minute ago, DWho said:

Personally, I'd prefer not to see a thousand Luke Skywalkers and Revans running around regardless of what "hidden" identifier would keep them distinct. It's already bad enough with the use of special characters in the names.

Don't forget about the thousand Ahsokas Tano and Talon

[microstyles]

19 minutes ago, SteveTheCynic said:

No, they should remain vague, because "invalid" means "the automated in-game censor doesn't like it", and it's best not to give too much information on how to skate along the edges of that.

That makes sense, but right now the message is something like "Invalid name" which gives almost no information at all. Something like "Name contains one or more names or words that are not allowed." Still pretty vague but at least the user has some idea what to change.

[Screaming_Ziva]

Speaking from a software developer background, changing a primary key (which I'm guessing it is, otherwise we could use duplicate names) on a database 10+ years down the road is not easy and is not really a very good idea unless absolutely necessary.

[microstyles]

1 hour ago, Screaming_Ziva said:

Speaking from a software developer background, changing a primary key (which I'm guessing it is, otherwise we could use duplicate names) on a database 10+ years down the road is not easy and is not really a very good idea unless absolutely necessary.

I'm in software as well and this is making a lot of assumptions about how the data is stored. In the databases I work with, none of the PKs are based off user input values and I think that's probably the smart way to go. 

Regardless my original suggestion would require some pretty big changes. The discussion here has convinced me that my initial concerns could be addressed in other ways.

[Screaming_Ziva]

8 minutes ago, microstyles said:

I'm in software as well and this is making a lot of assumptions about how the data is stored. In the databases I work with, none of the PKs are based off user input values and I think that's probably the smart way to go. 

Regardless my original suggestion would require some pretty big changes. The discussion here has convinced me that my initial concerns could be addressed in other ways.

Yeah, I know I made some assumptions.  I just wanted to try to show that it's not as easy as just starting to allow duplicate names.  Many many things would need to be changed on the back-end.

[xordevoreaux]

On 11/14/2022 at 3:19 PM, microstyles said:

The issue will continue to get worse as time goes on

1. Get creative. Go with a theme. My first dozen or so characters were all Welsh or Gaelic names.

2. Avail yourself of the random generator.  Generate a random name, highlight it, control-X. Generate another random name. Hit Space. Control-V.  Now you have two random names separated as a space functioning as the first name, and most probably, unique.

 

[bluehufsa]

20 hours ago, xordevoreaux said:

1. Get creative. Go with a theme. My first dozen or so characters were all Welsh or Gaelic names.

2. Avail yourself of the random generator.  Generate a random name, highlight it, control-X. Generate another random name. Hit Space. Control-V.  Now you have two random names separated as a space functioning as the first name, and most probably, unique.

 

Exactly! 

So let 'say a character is a BH, they can use a Mando'a name. Or, if they are Twilek or Chiss, use traditional names for their species. 

[joshuadyal]

On 11/14/2022 at 3:53 PM, microstyles said:

Yeah sorry I'm still getting the hang of what is and is not appropriate here for a new topic. Most forums frown on necromancy but here nobody seems to mind. 

Has bioware officially said they're against it?

Also no irony here remember I'm in favor of duplicates so that's right on brand.

Who cares? Should that impact your decision to voice your opinion and make the suggestion, even if it's been voiced before? It indicates that there's still demand for that suggestion to be implemented.

[SteveTheCynic]

On 11/16/2022 at 9:42 PM, microstyles said:

I'm in software as well and this is making a lot of assumptions about how the data is stored. In the databases I work with, none of the PKs are based off user input values and I think that's probably the smart way to go.

I'm "in software" too (developer for 34 years now, soon to be 35), and having also played other MMORPGs, I feel obliged to point out that MMORPGs sometimes use user-input values as keys, and presumably(1) without sufficient cascading updates either.  Yes, we both know that they should *not* do that, but "should not do" and "do not do" aren't the same.

(1) My primary example is Guild Wars 2, where the "display name" (a misnomer, as we'll see) of your account is used as a linking field in various other parts of the databases, and if they change it, stuff(2) breaks in ways that can't be repaired.  It's clear from other things they've said about this that the account *has* an internal ID, a GUID), but it is only used in some of the places it should be.

(2) Examples: have mail sent to you, send mail, whisper people, be whispered, join a guild, use the Trading Post.  Irrelevant stuff like that that nobody would ever want to do.