They have had no levels gained, no AA gained, no achievements or quests gained. It literally was just a log in update that came after the announcement was made for names. I had checked the character once the original consolidations where announced and they had not been updated for years. So the player may be active but the toon is not, if anything it was logged in within the last few days after the rules were stated in order to keep the name. They may play it at a later time but, not today that is for sure. I know that not everyone will be happy, someone somewhere is going to lose out. But they could have taken in other aspects like time played, or even active time within the last year. Were the characters actively played or were they just logged in to keep the name. They can see this data, going this route I think they should have been hush hush on the logging in 60 day prior part.
And as an active player with a billion alts that I don't play every day, or every month, I will also be logging in EVERY one of them to ensure my names are kept. That's common sense. The player with your name is an active player that apparently keeps up with EQ2 news and logged in to his/her toon in response to the upcoming server merge. Sorry, your name is already taken by an active player. The fact that the PLAYER is active is what's important, not that he or she hasn't advanced their toon in forever. They play, they got that name first, they have taken the steps to ensure they keep it. You're not being slighted. This is not a toon that has been abandoned by someone who hasn't played the game in 10 years. This toon belongs to an active player.
Seems a bit unfair that one person could be losing their level 100 main character's name to someone else's level 3 bank alt, though. I'm personally of the opinion that whoever gets more use out of the name should be the one to keep it. I've been an active player since launch, but if I have a good name on a toon I haven't played in ages, I delete the character so that someone else can get some use out of the name. I'd much rather see someone else with that awesome name, logging in every week and leveling that character and having fun, rather than letting it gather dust for years on a character I'll never play.
I have lost names in past server merges, was quite upset, but found even better names for that character. Of course I risk losing them all over again. I will be coming up with names I like so I can see what I would like to change the names to and cross my fingers. I am glad it comes down to the other people with the same names, if I lose then good for the other person, I will find a new name. I am not sure that they could get any fairer. I stand to lose a couple names with the policy they announced but they do have a lot of other things to look at and I do not wanna lose my stuff as well. For now people just need to relax, sit back and adjust, things tend to work out alright.
That's very altruistic and kind of you to do that. Unfortunately, you are in the minority :S. There are no hueristics that DBG could conceivably employ to measure who gets "the most use out of a name." Even if they could, they'd spend 6 months developing the method, and by then the servers will all be dead. They are doing the best they can to ensure that the names go to actively playing people who have had the names the longest. And who is to say what is the "most use" out of a toon? A level 3 could be a rollplaying toon of some sort. There is just no way to know how important that level 3 name is to the player. If that level 3 name is important, they will log in within the 60 days to maintain rights to it. That alone determines how important that name is to the player. This player in question apparently deems his low level toon name important enough to take the steps to keep it. And he/she has had it longer... so they win, whether or not it meets anyone's standards of "most use".
This is really the key point. There are unlimited ways of interpreting this, and it will be very subjective. Some will argue whatever position means that THEY keep their character's name and the "other person" loses theirs. But looking at it objectively, "creation date" is a fixed data item that cannot be fiddled with by the players, so it is one reasonable criteria to use. There will be "unfair" outcomes in a few cases, but there will be "unfair outcomes" in a few cases whatever criteria DBG choose, and there will always be some people unhappy at losing their name. Face facts, if DBG are going to merge and the names clash, one has to change, and there needs to be some criteria or other, and this is as fair as the other choice that some others are arguing for. The only thing is, "days played" is easy for a player to fiddle by just leaving a character logged in, so "creation date" is a fairer way from that perspective. Of course, "number of funded account days" would be the best, as payers would have priority over freeloaders. *chuckle*. But even that, and there would be SOME people complaining. Whatever DBG do, some people will complain. So they made their call.
Question about House Transfers in the past when i've done a server transfer, all the items in a house became the property of the house owner, regardless of the original owner. i'm wondering how this is going to be treated in the consolidation so i can plan my move. /thx
If I had to guess, I would say in this case it would work like the xfer, but I could be wrong it has happened before.
I think this server transfer is great and sorely needed. Really, what are some of you so upset about; what's in a name? Your character will still be your character. And, there are some very creative ways to spell assorted names. Anyway, not trying to hassle anyone, just sharing my thoughts. I have one question: Can a character be transferred between accounts. I have 2 accounts that I would like to balance. Probably not possible, but thought this might be a good time to ask?
Thanks @Siren and @Avirodaar for finding this (I knew I was not crazy!) DBG could we at least be consistent when these things come up? The last time this came up your stance was slightly different and had more data accounted for. Although "your" stance was actually SOE's stance and not DBG https://forums.daybreakgames.com/eq2/index.php?threads/server-mergers-announced-by-email.498984/
Haha! Another old fart like me who remembers disco! As a matter of fact, "Disco" was my nickname all through my junior and senior years in high school. I'm sure there were people I knew back then that didn't even know my real name! Quite a few have made fun of disco since, but the discos were where all the finest ladies were hanging back then, and disco dancing was little more than creative foreplay anyway! So glad to get this info on the consolidation! My biggest worry was how in Anashti's name was I going to deal with all the tiles (mucho, mucho tiles!) I have collected and plan to use (one day, when I finally screw-up my courage to the necessary level to try to fit all those tiles without cracks!) A big THANK YOU to Holly and the Team for this!!
As much as I dislike the current state of servers, I'm also glad this isn't being rushed. Please keep doing what you're doing.
For starters Siren I would go to EQ2I and do a character search for your toons on both servers to see just how many you will have to worry about. Unless you have some real common names, I would bet getting your wings in a bunch will not be necessary. I had one out of 51 names that are duplicates and that one's doppelganger hasn't played in over six years. The second thing is to make sure you log in to all your characters frequently to further reduce the chances of losing your name(s). I bet when its all said and done, you probably few to none of your toons will actually have to be changed. And then what if they do, it gives you a chance to be be really creative and come up with new names. Smile! After all it is just a game in the end.
A lot of processes aren't perfect from the start. Trial and error sometimes has to be the way in order to arrive at a system that makes sense. ("sense" may not be the right word to use here, but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ ) unrelated to topic - that red bolded quotes really does a job on my eyes, I just don't read those
I mean I guess, I don't want merges happening every month myself. So consistency from one to the next would be nice. People would know what to expect each time. That said this change no longer affects me, with free transfers I will keep all my names so /shrug If anything the old way I would lose 3 names and the new way without the transfer I would lose 1, thankfully with free transfers I will not lose any so it is all moot.
I'm just saying, this is completely different from the previous merges where all toons from one server were dumped into another already existing server.
The way I understand the naming guidelines if I rename a toon today that I created in when EQ2 was launched I would get to keep the name over someone who created a toon 8 years ago, kept the same name since creation and played in daily since then... I am sure nobody will abuse this loophole...
Siren, do you think that someone who created their toon before you and played continually until now should lose their name to someone on server that was created AFTER they made their toon? I am sorry I just can't see the fairness in that... Personally I think all name conflicts should be based on the name of the characters the day "BEFORE" server mergers were announced. And the "login within the last 60 days" should also be based on the day "BEFORE" the announcement...
Having been around since late 2004, I've survived a server transfer/merger or 3. I've seen a few problems here and there, but the number of problems I've personally had to deal with has been very small. A lost item or 2 in the mergers is about the most significant. I've found that the fastest way to fix a problem is #1 know what needs fixed; #2 attack the problem with kindness and understanding. If you're having a bad day cause something got messed up in the move, imagine what kind of day the person trying to fix it is having. Having successfully managed to live through perma to shadowhaven, shadowhaven to bazaar, and bazaar to freeport; I can say with confidence that we'll all make it through this with as few problems as can be managed. And, in the end, the increased server populations will be good for all of us.
