Toon names

[primadeluxe]

With the game being as old as it is finding good and clean names is becoming progressivly harder. And for those who lost their names in server mergers like i did it is frustrating to know that your Name is lost forever to someone who doesnt even play the game anymore, name purges should be introduced to the game, where they purge/Open up names after a certain amount of time being unsubscribed. Now i have taken long breaks from the game, several years long brakes and still come back. So the timer for name purges should be long, i think 2 to 3 years after not being Subscribed or logged into your account, the names will be up for grabs. 

What do you think?

[SoontirMorillo]

23 minutes ago, primadeluxe said:

What do you think?

I find this topic bizarre.

If you lost your names during server mergers, it basically means the other person kept it, because he simply played his toon more than you. Because this was Rule N°1 for server merges: if both players are subscribers, the toon who was more played, has the right to keep his name.

You propose another round of cleansing because you assume you "lost your name forever to someone who does't even play the game anymore". Furthermore you state you "took long breaks from the game, several years long brakes".

How i see it: you are basically the afk player blocking names for more active players. You open this topic and hope, you will gain new names. I don't see that this is a given. Several years afk... you might lose more.

Edited March 25 by SoontirMorillo

[TonyTricicolo]

26 minutes ago, primadeluxe said:

With the game being as old as it is finding good and clean names is becoming progressivly harder

I find that hard to believe. Have you thought about using languages like Latin, Nordic, Scottish, Slavic. etc.  Try making names from other media. Try reversing names. Use alt codes. Use the street you live on and your middle name. Use your pet's name.  Your name is only limited by your imagination.

[primadeluxe]

17 minutes ago, SoontirMorillo said:

I find this topic bizarre.

If you lost your names during server mergers, it basically means the other person kept it, because he simply played his toon more than you. Because this was Rule N°1 for server merges: if both players are subscribers, the toon who was more played, has the right to keep his name.

You propose another round of cleansing because you assume you "lost your name forever to someone who does't even play the game anymore". Furthermore you state you "took long breaks from the game, several years long brakes".

How i see it: you are basically the afk player blocking names for more active players. You open this topic and hope, you will gain new names. I don't see that this is a given. Several years afk... you might lose more.

yes exactly i have spent several years being inactive, someone should have been able to take my names if they wanted it? thats exactly what this post is about not hording names. The people who play the game more should be able to get the names they want

[primadeluxe]

2 minutes ago, TonyTricicolo said:

I find that hard to believe. Have you thought about using languages like Latin, Nordic, Scottish, Slavic. etc.  Try making names from other media. Try reversing names. Use alt codes. Use the street you live on and your middle name. Use your pet's name.  Your name is only limited by your imagination.

Well the point is, i would much rather be Named Ares like i used to be than to be named "John Buddy" or "Øystein Brandenberg" if you catch my drift

[TonyTricicolo]

1 minute ago, primadeluxe said:

Well the point is, i would much rather be Named Ares like i used to be than to be named "John Buddy" or "Øystein Brandenberg" if you catch my drift

Think of this game like a rented apartment.  You don't own it, you rent the space. If you don't pay rent or go away for a long time, the owner rents it to someone else. 

[SoontirMorillo]

13 minutes ago, primadeluxe said:

Well the point is, i would much rather be Named Ares like i used to be than to be named "John Buddy" or "Øystein Brandenberg" if you catch my drift

It's funny how this threads "i can't find any names, all names are taken" always ends with something like "i want Ares". Ares. Yes, Ares is taken. Who would have thought. And no purge will ever change that.

Edited March 25 by SoontirMorillo

[Traceguy]

5 hours ago, primadeluxe said:

With the game being as old as it is finding good and clean names is becoming progressivly harder.

It might be harder to find a single word for your name, but try 2 words as your name. Is "John" taken? Try naming yourself "John Doe". Even after 37 toons, I'm not running into much trouble following this rule.

I see you mentioned wanting Ares. Why not try "Ares One", "Ares <Legacy Name>", etc.

 

[primadeluxe]

7 hours ago, SoontirMorillo said:

It's funny how this threads "i can't find any names, all names are taken" always ends with something like "i want Ares". Ares. Yes, Ares is taken. Who would have thought. And no purge will ever change that.

Ares used to be my toons name before the merger, Ares currently isnt an active player and probably hasnt been for years, yet my old name is still locked

[Rohndogg]

20 hours ago, primadeluxe said:

Ares used to be my toons name before the merger, Ares currently isnt an active player and probably hasnt been for years, yet my old name is still locked

And had it been available someone else probably would've beat you to it. I guarantee a different person tries that name EVERY DAY. Unless you somehow knew exactly when the name became available you'd never get it anyway. And also you'd have lost it again while you were gone more than likely if there was a release like you're saying. To someone likely to be active. And you'd be upset you came back and don't have the name anymore. Think about it the other way around, they got there first, they earned the right so to speak. How would you feel if you came back after a 6 month break and all your characters lost their names? I had Anton, just Anton as my sniper. I lost it on the first server merge. I accepted it and came up with a different name. I love the new name, it's unique. Sometimes we need to learn to let something go so we can enjoy the things we have. I get you're upset that you want your cool name back, but I don't think taking them away from people is the right answer.

Not to mention the havoc that could play with the mail system. If they have pending mail changing their name would necessitate nuking their mailbox until they can create a new name because any mail to that name would go to the new player instead. Not bueno.

[SteveTheCynic]

22 hours ago, primadeluxe said:

Ares currently isnt an active player

That might or might not be true, but Ares is *definitely* the name of an important NPC (the primary antagonist, in fact) in one of the KotET chapters, and therefore it *should* say that the name is *Invalid*(1) rather than *not available*.

(1) Against the naming rules enforced by the automatic censor, notably, in this case, the rule that says you're not allowed to give your character the name of a character or area in SWTOR lore, nor in general Star Wars lore.  (Not all such names are enforced by the automatic censor, mind you.  I once, without realising it, named a character "Tela" - there's a slightly obscure mine in the Gormak lands on Voss that's called that...)

[SteveTheCynic]

2 hours ago, Rohndogg said:

Not to mention the havoc that could play with the mail system. If they have pending mail changing their name would necessitate nuking their mailbox until they can create a new name because any mail to that name would go to the new player instead. Not bueno

It *shouldn't* cause that kind of problem.  Once it's been put in the mailbox, it should be linked to the mailbox by an unchangeable internal ID of the character that we players never see.

Of course, "shouldn't" and "doesn't" are different things, but since character names are inherently variable, it would be incredibly unwise of the studio to use the actual character name as the mailbox ID.  (And even if they had done that, nothing would stop the rename action from changing the name on the mailbox.)

And in any event, having done it, I can confirm that changing your character's name does not delete the mails in your character's mailbox.

[Hrafnhildur]

On 3/25/2024 at 4:30 PM, TonyTricicolo said:

I find that hard to believe. Have you thought about using languages like Latin, Nordic, Scottish, Slavic. etc.  Try making names from other media. Try reversing names. Use alt codes. Use the street you live on and your middle name. Use your pet's name.  Your name is only limited by your imagination.

Or Mando'a names, you can use a lot of combinations and still have an awesome name . 

Chiss names , if the character is a Chiss : mine is Ava'anor'len, IA. 

Or,if the name you want isn't available, a variation of that name or that name + something else : you can't have "Sophie", but you can have " Sophie-den", "Sophie-jen" and so on. 

Star Wars names don't have to have any logic or look like normal names, do you honesty think any real person would name their child " Pargon Sisto"? 

 

[SteveTheCynic]

5 hours ago, Hrafnhildur said:

do you honesty think any real person would name their child " Pargon Sisto"

Both parts of this name show up as family names in France(1), and there's plenty of precedent for people using what otherwise looks like a family name as a given name.

(1) "Sisto" is the family name of one of my colleagues.(2)

(2) I live and work in France...

[Hrafnhildur]

21 hours ago, SteveTheCynic said:

Both parts of this name show up as family names in France(1), and there's plenty of precedent for people using what otherwise looks like a family name as a given name.

(1) "Sisto" is the family name of one of my colleagues.(2)

(2) I live and work in France...

OK, maybe this one exists, i'm not saying it doesn't. By the way, my bank teller's name is Antoinette Fett 🤣

But Meridat Stato? Felusia ? Clem ? Jicoln? I highly doubt they do. 

Anyway, i was just trying to help the original poster, that's all. 

[SteveTheCynic]

Clem would be a slightly dated abbreviation of Clement (which is also slightly dated) in our world, and for Stato, may I direct your attention to the professional boxer Nick Stato (Nick Stato - Wikipedia).

But yes, there's no reason to be bound by Earthly naming patterns in a Star Wars context.

[Hrafnhildur]

On 3/30/2024 at 9:06 PM, SteveTheCynic said:

Clem would be a slightly dated abbreviation of Clement (which is also slightly dated) in our world, and for Stato, may I direct your attention to the professional boxer Nick Stato (Nick Stato - Wikipedia).

But yes, there's no reason to be bound by Earthly naming patterns in a Star Wars context.

In Iceland, a name like "Clem" would be rejected, but "Clement" might be approved. 

Stato as a family name, sure. As a given name to a child, no. 

Exactly, since Earth doesn't exist in Star Wars, we shouldn't report to Earthy names. 

[Kalnarius]

I cant really see them doing a name purge/cleanse anytime soon the only time we will see another 1 is if they merge all the servers together or if they introduce cross server play (which at this point cross server play may actually happen instead of merging the servers together could see cross server flashpoints, heroics, ops, pvp and potentially even guilds to be hoenst). While some things will have to change that would probably be the only way we will see a name purge going forward freeing up names but a lot of names will be added to the invalid list because like Steve said there is a lot of names that are technically against ToS because of being characters in other Star Wars media or in Swtor as well other content in general so a lot of names people want to run with will be blocked. There will be bigger outcry because names are no longer useable. I havent seen them purge a lot of names for ToS recently but people are getting more and more daring with some of the names they are running with. 

 

[SteveTheCynic]

3 hours ago, Hrafnhildur said:

In Iceland, a name like "Clem" would be rejected, but "Clement" might be approved

Icelanders don't ever call each other by shortened versions of their full given names?  You know, like calling Nicholas "Nick" (or Nicolas => Nico in French), or Michael => Mike, or (my favourite) Stephen => Steve.  That was what I meant by Clem being  an abbreviation of Clement.

[Traceguy]

12 hours ago, Hrafnhildur said:

In Iceland, a name like "Clem" would be rejected, but "Clement" might be approved.

Both Clem and Clement can also be short for Clementine.

[SteveTheCynic]

2 hours ago, Traceguy said:

Both Clem and Clement can also be short for Clementine.

I'd be very surprised to find a guy called "Clement" whose name was short for Clementine.

[Rohndogg]

On 3/30/2024 at 6:50 AM, Hrafnhildur said:

OK, maybe this one exists, i'm not saying it doesn't. By the way, my bank teller's name is Antoinette Fett 🤣

But Meridat Stato? Felusia ? Clem ? Jicoln? I highly doubt they do. 

Anyway, i was just trying to help the original poster, that's all. 

Clem was a common name in the american south for a while. I've met a couple. Felusia is very close to Felicia, Meridat is very slight spin on Meredith and I've found a couple real life examples as both a surname and first name.

The thing that makes this funny is names are inherently made up. I had a girl that went to my high school named La-a, pronounced Ladasha. Yeah, and I quote "The dash isn't silent" I've seen Khayleigh I've seen Typhanee, I've seen Mareeya, and so many many more. Look up odd spellings of common names and you'll be busy all week.

This issue is also not unique to swtor by any measure. Any game requiring unique character names will be like this.