Why Are Names Important?

I'd say remove some names with these conditions: After 2 years and only characters below level 30.

And in Planetside 2 SOE did such a thing already .

Plus: There are also european accounts which cannot be accessed anymore anyways. Those names could be freed up as well. (I don't think that SOE will continue to transfer acounts without an automatic process )

oh, there have been many of this threads over the years.
but i'm with you, most people just want a specific name and don't think about creativ ways of naming their toons.
but i play on eups and it is very easy here to get the toon-name you want when you work with the little tricks we have here.
but freeing toon-names after 1 or 2 names of inactivity is ok by me.
it doesn't matter why you didn't loggin for so long, it's clear that dcuo hasn't a high priority for that player so just rename the toon with _x like they did when servers merged.

ToxicAngelDE_001 out!

I'm fine with them taking away names from inactive characters with a couple of conditions:
1) That account (not character) has been inactive for 24 months. If they've logged on at least once in that time, or paid even one month of subscription, or bought one dlc on their account then the timer starts again from that transaction/login.
2) A warning e-mail is sent out.
Honestly, I think this would be a great little earner for them with name change tokens and extra character slots (at least for a burst).

Personally I'd prefer something like in other games where multiple people can have the same name, would keep both sides happy. I have my names so I don't really have a horse in this race.

How about we just leave peoples names alone?

At the very least the devs could send out an email to players that have not logged in for 2+ years saying that if they would like to retain their characters names that they will need to log in by a certain date to show that they are active. Anyone choosing to not log in will forfeit their name and be given a free rename token.

Edit: almost exactly what Sechuran Fox said.

Sure, If they we're actually using them.... But they're not... Thanks Census App.

If I'm playing every day on "Blacksmith1" and "Blacksmith" is a level 10 toon that hasn't logged in in 2 years with under 20 hours played, why should the original guy get to keep the name? He's in active and likely never coming back.

If they were to reset, there'd likely be both a last login and hours played requirement. People would have plenty of warning in advance to reclaim a name they wanted.

we can't do that

I know I said I will stay out of this thread, but this so much. What I am trying to get at is, when you have a name that is already taken and you see the person in game or someone else with the same name, but they decided to added XxX or 3567463 *random sort of numbers at the end* the chances of you getting a certain name is slim for if other people have the name in mind as well, you might get the name, if you get lucky that time, out of experience a name that took some thinking on and some google searching on are the names that aren't taken.

Once again if this does happen, 2 years is a good time. Sending people a email and if they want to keep their toon name, they would log on and stay on for a few mins and log off, if they don't then they won't bother, but the chances of getting a name that others have in mind as well since you see the Xs and numbers all over the place is very low. Then what's going to happen when those names are taken? Considering we have so much people trying out the game and downloading right now at this very second and then play the game for a few minutes and never log on again...people would have to wait 2 years to get the name they want.

Granted they do this don't get your hopes up high.

I. Don't. Care.

They won't all be taken instantly. I want the names available for the good of the game, not because I actually want any of the names.

The amount of inactive names floating around is much bigger than you think. And like you said quite a few will be claimed quickly, however according to SuperSkulls topic we currently have less than a million people playing (with the majority on PS3 and PS4) and there have been well over 18 million accounts created.

I totally agree with your second paragraph. An email could be sent out giving players the chance to keep their account names for x amount of time simply by login in on the account. Heck some of those people might even stick around. However there would also be those that login just to spite other knowing full well they don't plan on ever coming back.

i have no agenda for wanting this. there are a few names i would like to use but in the end they would be on alts way down on my list of alts and would only be played for fun/farming/those two or three weeks before a new dlc when theres nothing for my main group to do.

on day one when i went to roll up my first toon i decided not to create my main...not even my main alt. i made up a "practice" toon...was a pretty common name ("Volcano") and it was already taken...as were most variations of it as well as names with "Comet" in it.

as it was said someone is going to beat you to it. fortunately most of mytoon ideas are original enoughthat ive had very little trouble naming and even keeping those names(i.e. no _JST for me).

The main reason I would want to see a name purge occur is simply to improve the games quality of life. attract new players, less x's , o's and netphonics. less frustrated new players=happier players=healthier game environment.

Sending emails out to old players could bring a few back into the fold. Someone who left last year and the year before might pop back on, look around, like what they see and stay.

answering the ops title its how you make your first impression. i've had players tell me they invited me to group over other players shouting because they liked my name more.

Even if the devs did that, and people actually responded and logged in, the whiners would then try to come up with something to keep them from logging in. This "I want that name because I can't come up with one myself," cycle will always go on.

Once again I will try to help. In addition to the tricks listed in this thread, visit www.seventhsanctum.com It is a name generating site that has names for may categories. It will help generate a name for those who are having trouble.

First off, tl;dr so all apologies if this has already been mentioned...

I think a more equitable solution would be to do the old "add a character to the name" trick for all characters on an account that hasn't been active in two years. I go with the whole account instead of individual characters because many folks I know find names based on upcoming powersets then create characters to hold those names til the powers come out. These are active players so they shouldn't be penalized for doing nothing more than thinking ahead.

If an entire account hasn't been active in that long though, there's no reason for someone to expect their character's name to be kept.

6 671 040 characters are are still on the Brainiac ship.
Odds are that 99% of those are inactive players.
So at least 6 604 329.6.


18 320 474 characters did not even reach level 30.
Again... odds are that a LOT of those are inactive by now.

Sure not all characters that are not level 30 yet are inactive..... I have a handfull of such characters myself..... but a LOT of those are inactive.

There are 20+ millions characters in DCUO.

Most players only have 1 character.

So I would bet that around 18 millions are actually inactive characters. That is a LOT of wasted names.

But yes..... we will not know for sure until they add back the last log in date to the census

Once we can see the data for players who did not log in for the past 3 years.... we will have a better idea of the amount of inactive characters.

Allow me to quote myself:

Why don't you want the devs to do what's best for the game?

How is that good for the game? They will be taken instantly, probably by alts or people who will quit again. Opening names isn't for the good of the game. Its pointless.

We're talking about more than 10 million names. They won't all be taken instantly.

is what I've been saying, a bunch of spoiled brats that want their way so they keep fighting it, and as pass experience has taught us whiners get their way in this game lol

so the chances of this happening is good as long as they keep on crying over it lmao

Yes, but they aren't all unique names. You will free up "Flame Lord", but you will also free up "Flame Lord" 1-39 and XxFlamexLordXx and so on. So that original name will be taken instantly, and then it will go back to more "Oh, that "ingenious" name was taken, so I guess Ill add random numbers/letters."