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If someone left one month after release, there is a good chance that nobody is going to want or be able to get his/her name.

That person's name is likely going to be something like "Avalanche_NML". The chances that someone who quit after one month in, had a great name, and didn't get it changed after the servers merge is ridiculously small.

Except those new people would not have cool names because they will have already been taken by someone else. Besides, who cares if the new people have cool names? Are they really going to just opt not to play because they had to put more x's in their name? People keep downplaying things like military service and illness due to it not being a frequent enough occurrence but then give asinine scenarios are probably even less likely to occur.

Its not even about the fact that people won't play because of their names. Its the fact they those names are taken for no good reason. Why let something waste for years. How is me saying that it will make the game better to have more name available a foolish scenario.

You mean like new players actually wanting to play DCUO or freeing up a name to an active player who will put it to good use? Because that's the only 'asinine scenario' anyone advocating a name change is talking about here.

'Who cares if the new people have cool names?' - they do. We get you don't care about the immersion and player experience for those new to the game, but for those who would like to see the community and player base grow the opportunity for them to name a character something without 'more x's' in the name goes a long way. I'm not hating, but you have a character named 'Corporate' - at this point, I *know* you don't care about player names.

Further, which do you think is more likely - a player coming back to the game after two years, or someone trying it out for the first time?

How many of these folks do you think are still playing, are Legendary or Premium, or plan to return? How many of them do you think made a character and quit after the first week? If that number is even "30%", that's 300,000 names between the PC and PS servers. This from VentureBeat.com after F2P launched:

This move seems to have paid off, certainly in terms of player numbers. “DC Universe Online’s transition to free-to-play has been welcomed by the community and gamers with heroic enthusiasm. In just one week alone, 1 million new players have joined DCUO, with a 50/50 split between PC and PS3” Lorin Jameson, executive director of entertainment at Sony Online Entertainment Austin, said today.

I have nothing else to add. Nothing else should be added. What I highlighted in Twilight Mans post are the reasons why this will never happen.

Also, a quick search shows countless threads with the same exact proposal. It's just not going to happen.

I have returned to a game that did this so called name wipe, and I was not to happy about it, to put it mildly.

How long were you gone? Did someone else take your name? What happened to your name when you logged in? Was it completely different? Did you get an opportunity to re-name it without penalty?

I have a friend stationed in Afghanistan right now for the better part of two years. He deserves to lose his toon's name? He should have to file an exemption form? No, that's crap.

FTP accounts ONLY. Inactive for a minimum of six months. It would definitely create revenue in the form of rename tokens though, so there is a business justification here.

LOL.

I'd say that's an exaggeration.

I fought off hordes of angry savages across the length and breadth of darkest Africa for FIFTY YEARS just to point that out.

This is a different thread. Let's keep it that way, please.

I'm sure your obsessive struggle to find that perfect name is as long and painful as the Trail of Tears. I'm sorry for making light of your pain and anguish. Good luck with your quest for justice.

Ah, great! Monty Python clips and discussions about a different thread. I really couldn't imagine how there were 4 pages of discussion when the first answer given to the op was already that complete and thus, brilliant. Nice to see it isn't really going on at all. It strengthens my believe in the playerbase's capability.

This topic has come up before. The problem isn't a scarcity of names. It's a scarcity of ideas. There are over a million words in the English language. Using just 2 world permutations, that allows for over 500 billion combinations. Let's assume only 1% of those names make any sense; that's still 5 billion unique two word names. That's not counting unique spelling ("blaq" instead of "black") of proper names (historical & literary figures, locations, deities, mythical creatures, legends and monsters.)

I wish DCUO would purge all the names like "xBatmanx", "xxlLexLuthorlxxx" or "Clark Kent1987."

Sidenote: I am not attacking the users of those names specifically. I have personally never seen any of those names. Just names of similar structure.

It's a shame posters have to point something like this out explicitly nowadays.

Posters often read lightly and judge quickly unfortunately.
Then a 5 page long "what i meant was..." discussion begins. It is a shame.