- From The Naming Of Cats by T. S. Eliot

Sounds like a MMO player, right?

This week we'd like to ask how important is it to have a completely unique character name?

Would you mind if someone shared your character name?

What MMO do you think has the best naming system and why?

I think Champions Online, Star Trek Online, and Neverwinter Online have the best naming systems, becuase names are never unique.

This allows everyone to have a name they are happy with rather than forcing people to settle for names which don't click with their character.

A naming system like this would be absolutely essential for me to have in VO if I am to make any decent number of alts.

I don't think anyone should care if someone else has the same character name. Why be selfish when a system which restricts names based on what is "taken" is just a problem which gets bigger every year a game is out. the more players join and take names the less names are avaliable.

when names can be "taken" the pool of avaliable names gets forever smaller until people feel forced into leetspeak.

Heck in real life theres probably at least a million people named "Fred". and even with my very unusual real life name I'm sure at least 100 other people have it.

I also like Champions naming system. In CoH, I never once encountered someone that was even close to my name so even with a CO system I'm not worried about constantly encountering someone with the same name. Unless I go with Wolver!ne, Hu}k, SuperDuperMan or something I used to see a lot of in CoH, I don't see people being able to choose the same name.

You may want to have an easy option for changing names because some of those Wolverine people may get shamed into being a little more creative.

Champions Online had a perfect naming system. I don't see any need to improve or iterate on it.

The "same name" problem was vastly overblown, in my opinion. I had 15 characters on CO and never once ran into someone with my character's name. Any irritation you would experience at another player having the same name as you is meaningless compared to the frustration of having 4-5 character names rejected because they're already taken.

while the system for Champions Online had a great way to do names I don't think I want my user name behind the names of all my heroes I make.
If there was a way to have just the hero name without it I'd love to do that even tho it may get a bit confusing when several heroes have the same hero name.

Dragnmastralex wrote:
The user name can be hidden and is not normally visible next to your character name. It's actually a huge quality of life improvement since friends are shared accountwide.

This is completely useless for the dev question, but after one of my CoH toons was generic'ed, I made a habit of always using a nonsense name for every character in every game I ever played from that point on. Like Florgenprobdo, or Czercomanxum, or McDooverDown (I could do this all day).

Therefore if I saw another player with a character name the same as mine, mostly I would be impressed by the infinitesimally unlikely coincidence.

For the benefit of the other folks who were not once-upon-a-time IP infringers like myself, in principle I like the idea of names not being universally unique. The worst thing is to see FlameGuy19230. Or F1am3Guy. Or whatever. That basically forces one to notice the controller outside the game universe.

Sorry to bump, I just realized I do have an opinion on this. It should be possible to include spaces and such in the name. Some games don't allow that, which is really dumb. If I want my guy to be named Hoodat the Hum, I should be able to.

Even on the OFF CHANCE that you DO encounter somebody with your same name, it's not like it'd be the end of the world, and even some things can build off of that idea;


Let's say there's two "Char1s" and they met ICly. Now it's very possible for the two to get into an IC debate over who has the right to use that superhero moniker, or they could just go with it, and everything betwixt the two. The possibility gets even funnier if they have a similar colour scheme. I can see it getting confusing in chats though, that's the only real problem I see, but no system is perfect.

Another thing is, even if you go the route of Cryptic's naming systems, it'd probably be best to allow "special" characters, from numbers to ASCII codes for the accents (nothing more annoying than going through the effort to learn how to type an acute 'a' (á) for a name like Máedóc or órla and then figuring out you can't use it when you try to type it in, or worse, finding out AFTER you type it in that it's disallowed).

Hmm I like the idea of unique names, but I do see how this rapidly devolves into Leetspeak (XX-C4pt-M4rV3l-XX.) I think if names are allowed to be duplicated like in Champions the community will develop around more "roleplay style" names that are appropriate to the genre. Yes, three will still be the odd names that don't seem to fit a Hero theme but there will be less of them.

Though sometimes those odd names just need a backstory...

My Robot themed Claw Scrapper in CoH was CLA-W 089 (Cybernetic Law Agent --Weapon 089) and was an autonomous being that worked for the Paragon Police Department.

cristobal03 wrote:
This is a very important point. also remember many classic super hero names have spaces in them. there's definitely an established precedent.

Cekseiro wrote:
This is where the account handle comes in. you can set an option to show it next to the character name but only in the chat window. instant identification! the benefits of account handles are many.

the whole reserving and selling names gimmick is so annoying in MMO's we have more advanced servers then that these days it doesn't have to be the file name anymore.
in the real world people can share names, its a purely artificial limit or laziness with the tec we have today to make names unique

So I've been following development from the shadows for a while, but this is the topic that got me to register and participate since I feel it's important.

I think that the CO/STO/NW naming system has been proven objectively superior by now. DCUO is plagued not only by l33tspeak names everywhere you turn, but also by a widespread practice of hoarding and trading "OG Names" by the playerbase themselves. The system is simply flawed, and its biggest crime is probably the huge turn-off most new players would experience when their names get constantly denied over and over again at Step 1 before they can even begin playing the game.

CO doesn't have this problem, and even among non-RPers I struggle to find a l33tspeak or "non-superhero" name.

Now the biggest argument against the CO system is duplicate names, however in all my time not only in CO and STO, but also on other, bigger platforms like Steam or Battlenet, I have never once ran into a user with the same name as me. Surely, someone with the same username as me DOES exist, however somehow, someway, I have just never bumped into them. I have never seen two other users with the same name together in the same place either. The problem of, "Oh I'll be running into people with my name all the time!!" just doesn't seem to happen in practice. And if you happened to bump into someone with the same name once in a blue moon, does it really matter? Do people freak out IRL when they meet someone with the same first name?

The flaws of a unique naming system are just too big, and the flaw (singular) of a free naming system is just too small.

That aside, I think allowing punctuations and special characters in the name field would be nice as well.

I do love the CO system allowing you to get the name you want but how about putting in a name check system anyway to see if the name you want is already in use for those that truly want a unique name.

Also maybe some type of flag to denote that you were the first to have the name if someone decides to use it.

I will add my voice to the chorus here. I agree that a system with a unique master name, and character names are free to be choose as you will with basic copyright and profanity restrictions only is the best. (I'd also filter out GM names, and NPC names to avoid confusion.)

The duplicate character name to me just seems to be standard fair in a world of superheros, just means you ran into an alternate reality alternate time line doppelganer!

Q

Having my global handle appear in chat is not a complete dealbreaker, but it will almost certainly make me make more accounts than I otherwise would, if I play the game regularly. If I want people to find me on my alts, I'll friend them. I don't want random strangers who I happened to team with yesterday telling me to get on my tanker, or even think of my tanker while I am roleplaying a completely different character. For me that's just the basics of roleplay, but there are others - especially females - who will get stalked on all their characters if it is visible to players. Shared names with invisible account name works, but it also means people can make defamation characters to character-assassinate heroes they have a grudge against. So I prefer unique names.

Plus it helps me estimate the IQ of teammates before they lead us all to certain doom. People who name their character XxBlueBeetle123xX instead of coming up with something new are probably going to have problems with quickly adapting to unexpected challenges in a mission as well.

Itlandm wrote:
you realize that if people on your friends list constantly bug you about stupid stuff, you have no requirement to keep them on that list right?

ZeeHero wrote:
Yes, exactly! That is why I don't want everyone who happens to use the same chat channel as me to have the same possibility as people on my friends list, to figure out that my Manipulator is actually the Titan they teamed with yesterday. I reserve that for a few special people.

Itlandm wrote:
Well normally you can't have both a name you're always happy with and no global handle, I'd choose the global handle and a good name over no global handle and a name I'm not happy with anyday.