Suggestion regarding names and cross-play.

As Mepps announced earlier today, there's a very hard push for cross-platform play, which we found out via the snafu regarding the name changes. You can now only have one character of the same name on either PC or PS moving forward.

This is bad for the following players:

• Two different players on PC/PS that share the same name and are both active - one will have to have a name change, and if they're both active it's not really fair.
• A single player that has the same name on both platforms - they'd have to choose which one to play and which one to lose, ideally
• Players who really want a name that someone is squatting on on the other server but nobody with that name is on their own

There are no details yet about the merge, but there are two different possibilities that I can see:

- A cross-platform "Suicide Squad", where players from the different platforms can team up for instances, raids, and PVP
- The same as above but also sharing open world.

I've played several MMOs that allow cross-server queuing for dungeons and PVP, and every single one of them simply added a modifier to the end of my character name or directly underneath it for the duration of the instance. Other games that share open world would have this addition permanently. For example, in one of these games instead of my name simply being

Kristyana

my name would be either

Kristyana[Celestial Hills]

or

Kristyana
Celestial Hills

I would like to make a suggestion similar to this for cross play. Have something similar in instances that are cross-platform. You could add a [PC] to the end of my name, or have a third line underneath my League tag that states what platform I'm on - something like either of the following two examples.

Kristyana

<Odyssey>

[PC]

Kristyana [PC]

<Odyssey>

After the instance, we go back to our own server, and keep the normal name.

Even if we were sharing open world, this could be permanent.

The advantages here are numerous:

• Everyone gets to keep their own name, and you don't have accounts with years built into them forced to change them
• You can free up the cross-platform naming so you can have one on each platform, which was something a lot of people really wanted with the name reclamation
• In the event that two of the same name end up in the raid/instance together, they're both separate and identifiable

Name changes weren't that big a deal when the megaserver merge happened because the game was still fairly young, although it did suck for a lot of people. But the idea of players that have been playing on the same toon for years having to change their names with this merge is not a good one. I'm all for tying the communities together, but I spent years building up my toons, and they're a part of me, you know?

I won't claim to speak for everyone, but I know I speak for a lot of members of the community when I say I'd rather have a [PS] or [PC] tacked on to the end of my name or underneath it than running the risk of being forced to change it.

Thoughts?

PC and PS are totally separate, what's the issue?

The whole reason the forums are blowing up right now over the name change thing is because we found out (a little too late) that PC and PS now share the same name databases. For example, if someone has a name on the PS, you can no longer have that name on the PC and vica versa.

Mepps announced the reason for this was because soon the PS and PC would be able to play together. It has not been clarified if this is going to be a full server merge or simply sharing the same instance servers, but now a lot of people are freaking out that they will have to change their name when it happens.

This is a proposal to head that off at the pass, and hopefully eliminate a lot of issues people have with the way the name reclaim event was handled today.

Try reading the very first sentence Kristyana wrote...

"Cross-platform play" means PC and PS being merged together in some form.

Honestly, I have no problem with Kristyana's proposal if they aren't a True merger, but rather a sharing of instances.

But if it is a true merger and we will be playing together, then I don't want my name displayed as DCFanatical [PC] (and yes I have a character named that). I like the names I like, and don't want to go around being _PC, [PC], DCFanaticalPC or whatever other equivalent SOE can come up with.

But I don't really see a better solution to the problem.

Thanks so much hun, I tried my best and got the gist of it! I think it's weird that they promoted the whole name reclaim thing if they were just going to merge servers though. Anyway, it's great news for pvp.

Considering they aren't allowing server-specific names going forward from today, I don't think they'll be doing any sort of denotation. What they'll probably do is what they did for the mega server mergers: oldest active account gets to keep the name and everyone is just lumped in together. I say this because even sharing just instances opens the system up to whatever issues would arise from two players with the same name showing up in the same zone (or instance, in this case).

Are you kidding?! This will be a nightmare for PVP!

What about having a third line under your league tag?

And what if you have to give up Nyte Hawke or EmeraldStryke because of the merger? The chance of getting a name that sounds like that under the new rules is pretty slim, as today has shown.

Yah, methinks they wouldn't have mentioned it at all but for Mepps inadvertently posting about the names server merger. That was a biiiiiig thing to let slip to a bunch of folks that spend lots of time on computers.

Anyone that's done any sort of work with databases knows you don't just happen to merge similar databases on a whim. This meant that something bigger was afoot and the community was going to pound Mepps, Larry Liberty and the increasingly "look-what-I'm-doing-that-isn't-DCUO" Spytle until something gave. Mepps wisely spilled the beans, thus turning what was a board meltdown into pleased astonishment and wondrous speculation.

Interesting times are a-comin'.

Why? Shorter queue times....shorter queue times. I'm sure there are other reasons.

PVP is a totally different animal between PS and PC, mostly because of the (slight) input lag that PS suffers from.

Multiple SOE Live Legends tournaments confirm this

For all the people that are going to complain that PC has some sort of advantage (hacking, macro's etc.)

It's just going to cause a LOT of hostility.

I always assumed this was the reason the platforms were separate to begin with. As a PC player, I don't mind a merge.

Honestly, I am not really bonded to either of those particular names. But I do understand your point.

As for the third line, I suppose I wouldn't have a problem with that. Like I said, I am more concerned with the Character name as it is displayed.

Truthfully I have always been an advocate of the name@handle approach that has sometimes been floated about as a solution to getting wanted names. So as long as my character at log in screen or when i look at my character in world, I don't care if the game sees me as EmeraldStryke@DCFanatical, EmeraldStryke_PC, or EmeraldStryke_FlyingPinkBunnies.

Though I suppose I would prefer not the last one.

Sigh, this is just going to bring out the people wanting an @handle naming concept.

I really hate that concept and don't want to give them anymore fuel for their idea.

That's why I tried to avoid the @handle concept. I don't like it either, but I'd prefer people didn't lose their names, especially seeing as we just had a name purge.

If they go through with the cross-play, I think some folks losing their names is inevitable.

I for one am against merging USPS and USPC servers for gameplay...If hacks are a reality, they are infinitely more likely and possible on a PC than on an entertainment console. Also in terms of PVP, PC has access to different CAMERA ANGLES and TARGETING that is not available to console players, which will give PC players a decided INITIAL ADVANTAGE IN PVP EVERY TIME!!!!

I really hope i am not the only one fully apposed to this idea of a cross play and name merge. It seems like instead of taking a step forward in fixing the PS "badly named toons" they've gone three feet back by merging the names of pc players. We're back at where we originally started. Only this time we can't add a name to our friend's list to see if it's taken.