Name reclaim been 5 years

Man I hope they do eventually! Hate when I see someone in the Discord needing help I could so easily give them but nope! Can't play together! C'mon Microsoft and Nintendo! I mean, I'd sacrifice all my toon names for it if I had to. I can always find some other in-game name to represent them. I'm not very **** about my toon names as long as it works for them and I know what it means. I don't mind doing acronyms or initials or tacking on a first name alongside their super name or a little bit of l33t speak or tacking on a 2 or something. And the merge's benefits would outweigh all that like comparing a bowling ball to a golf ball lmao.

Ok, well that I'll go with. Yes, if a reclaim takes a lot of time I'd rather see it go to fixing bugs, developing content or making shiney things. If it's just a quick algorithm to see what's 'unused' then I'd say that's not a huge amount of time. Personally I don't see it taking that much time once you make the decision on the cutoff point, but hey....I'm no dev.

It takes some time because it has to be handled manually...and it just seems like a waste (no matter how little time it takes) especially if we'll be right here the following week with a renewed demand for another useless name reclaim. Now if they're doing another server merge it's a different story.

You, sir or madam, are a good person.

That's a perception vs reality thing.

Some players have this entirely unfounded misconception that a name purge would take up a bunch of developer time.

The shocking reality is that the developers themselves did not go through the list of every single character name, nor did the check how long accounts had been inactive. Instead they had a computer program do that. And while one might have argued that programming the program which will do the Name Purge costs developer time, the program is actually already done and was successfully implemented at the time of the first name purge. The work is done. Literally it is just a case of taking something they have already programmed, and then turning it on again.

Running a Seasonal Event takes significantly more work, since those include new styles each time. Running the name purge requires no more work than turning on a Marketplace Sale, or activating Double XP or Bonus Stabilizers week. You just take the thing that is already programmed and works, and you turn it on with no changes, so that it can do the exact same thing it did the last time.

The most successful MMO in the world runs name purges as a part of their regular game maintenance. As far as I'm concerned, DCUO should include it as a part of the daily 30 minute shutdowns we get, so that names are freed up gradually over time, instead of waiting 5 years to do them all at once. Then players wouldn't be waiting online after the purge to race to claim them, because nobody would know when a name was going to get freed up.

If/When they do it I hope they don't advertise it ahead of time like they did last time. We had at least one member who had lost his original name in the Mega-Server merge to someone who had created their character first but then stopped playing not long after. When the reclaim came along he was giddy as he had been a consistent player for years while the other character had been loooooooong dormant.

Just prior to the reclaim, the person holding that character logged the character in then promptly logged out. The only time in years that character was active was simply to foil the reclaim and it was done because the reclaim had been advertised so much beforehand.

Somehow I doubt he was the only one.

So if they do it I would rather it be done quietly behind the scenes.

to be honest i dont see why they havnt done what champions online did. in CO they go by email as the main handler name and this gives everyone the power to make what ever name they choose. if you look up a person then it would show:

abcdefg@blankDOTcom - <name here>

this i thought was the best thing because it allowed for people to make what they wanted and not have to worry about if a name was taken.

Then, here's a crazy idea... PLAY THOSE ALTS OCCASIONALLY SO THEY AREN'T SITTING THERE UNUSED!

Problem --> Solution!

My very first character that I created, when I started playing the game in 2012, was Green Lantern Jack T. Chance. As extraterrestrial GLs go, he's one of the more obscure ones, and yet, by the time I started playing the game, someone had already snapped up "JackTChance", "Jack T. Chance", "Jack T Chance", etc, or the Devs had made some of them unavailable. So my version ended up being called "TheRealJackTChance".

Since that time, the Census info let me discover the character that had the "OG" name and I was rightfully ticked off! Not only was it a character sitting there unused, but the character has NOTHING to do with the DC Comics character! The character isn't even a Green Lantern!

But while I'd love to have that name as my own, I've been using the same name on that character for 9 years. I'm not going to change it now. Because my character IS THE REAL Jack T. Chance, not Jack T. Chance In Name Only! He's the DC Comics character recreated in-game as accurately as the game will let me!

Understanding the context of something is important to understanding it so this is somewhat incorrect and borders on misleading.

It didn't come with a bunch of caveats. In the livestream Mepps explicitly explained the Dev team had been discussing this and it was happening. What's up in the air is the timing of it. He speculated that it would happen this year at some point but that was it.

What we can infer is that they will announce it when they're ready but if it's not this year it's fair to imagine it early in the next year.

I'd say if there is a reclaim it should be the start of a regular annual process. The big scoop up by the resellers only happens because this is NOT a regular thing. It's rare enough (what 2 times?) that it's worth sitting around waiting on it to happen so you can be ready to get those attractive names that get freed up.

In addition, I'd say that first pass should not be a set date. It should be set up for a 2 week or 1 month span. Whatever the parameters for the purge (toon not used in X months/years...inactive account...combination of parameters) we should get the warning that the 'effective' date could be (for example) any day in May. Meaning if you will slip into the parameters before the end of the month, you might be eligible for the purge so plan accordingly. Giving us an exact date/time for the purge just sets it up for the sellers. Now, I still maintain I'd rather see a decent name in the hands of a seller than some dead account, but yeah...it would be nice if regular folks got a chance to grab something up first. I'm not looking to change any names, so makes no real difference, but if they are going to do it, it would be nice if it were done as well as possible for best outcome.

You should have went with "Medphyll."

The only way anyone loses anything is if they have been inactive for over 18 months. If you have logged in within the past year and a half, you have nothing to worry about.

Name Purge only clears names from people who left a long time ago.

I would also afford a 7 day grace period where the purged names cannot be taken by newly created characters, only by usage of the Name Change Token.

Everyone who loses their name is already given a name-change token for free, so they can theoretically still take their name back for free.

Other people who have legitimately wanted a name and are willing to spend money on it can also have first dibs.

And people who are just making brand new accounts to try and squat on names, they are last in line.