Character Names: Realism or NøT

KnightPixie

I would prefer no numbers. But possibly having special characters like ñ, ü, á... would be nice to have. I also wouldn't care if "-" were available for surnames as well.

From what I've recently seen in the interviews you can have same first name but the first + surname will probably be locked. It was also mentioned the players may have control over what is displayed on screen (first name only vs full name toggle). Because of this, I am assuming that it will function like other MMO chats where the full name is displayed and not "Jane#7328".

Marcet

Vhaeyne wrote: »

I just want a simple common sense "(first name) (Lastname)". A-Z only. Have the game handle case not the player. No Alt-codes. Each section can't be more than 12 chars.

If we had both first and last names, We could have a lot of clouds and sephiroths with the right spelling.
I am still going to hate them, but at least ill hate them for being a weeb, and not a weeb who tried every way to spell the name until they got one.

I feel like that would solve a huge chunk of the problems. You would just have to get used to "/tell first last message".

Yeah and your name can be Boring Boomer.

Damokles

It would be more then enough to implement a simple "First Name Surname" system.
That way you will always be able to pick your favourite name.

PlagueMonk

Grievousness wrote: »

Holy crap, I just looked that up.
They named it X Æ A-12 Musk at first.
I am so glad they decided to go for X Æ A-XII instead.
The mother truly is right when she says roman numerals look better.
If that's the reality of modern day names might not enforce "real names".

On a more serious note, actual real names are so boring that nobody would pick something normal.
I mean you don't go into a fantasy world to name yourself "Bob" or "John", that kind of defeats the purpose.

Also there is something really good about a free name choice in online games.
You instantly have a glimpse into someones mind, I mean what kind of persons would name themselves
"xXxNOOBxXxSLAYERxXx" for example?
Just give it a thought.

Also in case you care:
SeñorWaffles sounds good to me, it has a more exotic appeal than MrWaffles.

You know, if someone chose to name themselves "John", I would be like, "REALLY, you couldn't put forth a little effort?"

@mrwaffles how about Waffles San?

BaSkA_9x2

I hope you don't have to choose a first name and a last name. Regarding which characters are allowed, I hope they don't outright ban every symbol in ASCII other than alphabet letters, many are fun to use.

mrwaffles

BaSkA13 wrote: »

I hope you don't have to choose a first name and a last name. Regarding which characters are allowed, I hope they don't outright ban every symbol in ASCII other than alphabet letters, many are fun to use.

Yeah thats what @KnightPixie was saying. There are a bunch of other characters you could use. The on down side thought is in the western world people wouldn't easily be able to type it in. they'd have to click you in person or in chat. Unless you got them Alt codes memorized

Beekeeper

ASCII codes make setting up a friendlist or banlist a complete chore.

Solmyr

Forcing unique names is how you get stuff like 'JohnWasTaken,' 'XxllJohnllxX,' 'TheRealJohn,' etc. Compared to modern tag systems, it's just objectively worse. You end up with 10x more wacky usernames because everyone is twisting themselves into knots trying to find a normal-sounding name that hasn't been taken.

For a game that's bending over backward for the sake of immersion in so many other areas, I'm honestly kind of baffled that they're going to be forcing unique names. Besides milking money from name reservations, I can't think of a single reason to go with that approach.

mobtek

I have Surnames planned for my mains and alts, I wouldn't mind having hyphens for some and option of the joiners "of the" or accents over à á â ... å ā etc which would help with uniqueness with a special char palette key to pop up for naming or modifier to see the accent options in game.

Scarbeus

No numbers or ASCII and strange alt codes, but allow character accents naturally as they are part of all sorts of languages.

Orym

Realism is not important to me since aoc is not realistic.
I think i would prefer that names where believable for aoc universe but don't really care too much.

bloodprophet

I like the idea of forcing unique names with primary and surnames as long as the surname is optional.
Some people like to have a single moniker like Blood. I would like to see a minimum and maximum number of letters for a total count allowing and counting spaces. So a name like John is taken could exist with out the underscores.

Far as seeing unique names. Back in GW1 early days I came across Mona Littlemore and about spit my coffee out that morning laughing.

Sengarden

Numbers can easily be out of the question right away. I don’t think anyone would have a problem with that. Dashes, apostrophes, spaces, other usual name punctuation marks could easily be programmed to only allow one punctuation mark before another letter is typed. Capital letters could be programmed to only be allowed at the start of a name, or following one of the aforementioned punctuations.

I think that should be good enough. I don’t know how many of y’all tried playing lord of the rings online, but it was a pita trying to find a name that both wasn’t taken and fit your chosen race’s language style guidelines. So, I vote no to any arbitrary “fantasy guidelines” Intrepid could possibly cook up. I expect to run into Frodo Teabaggins at some point. I’ll let out a soft chuckle, and go back to gathering herbs.

Sweatycup

People will always name some or all characters with absurd name like Cho**ster, my gnome in WoW. I do however hope we get proper slots to see a First Name and a Last Name. When i played SWG way back it was nice to have a proper full name choice, first and last shown. I think AoC would be mistaken for not adding naming this way. The world wants to pull you in but people with no surnames just deduct from it. So you might choose as a RP'er or just friends who play together for a laugh choose to all pick the same surname. Also people that do not follow a rp and go back with silly names the two word choice also helps create character in its own way. You might go with Fatal Effect or something silly like Bunny Whomper. Adding a surname to the character is all around more fun and helps those who wish to RP to w/e effect proper options. Marriage in-games would be cool to see a choice to add that players surname to the end of your own, take on the surname or keep your own.

CROW3

Non- integer, non-special characters (*%#~), and player name uniqueness is the combination of first and last. So 2 toons can have the same first or 2 toons can have the same last, but 2 toons cannot have the exact same first and last names.

AmericanSpy

Honestly, names with numbers or special characters don't bother me much. What does grind my gears, is when I see them used to circumvent the rules of name generation.

Cat Quiver

I mean the Xx xX654 names are stupid looking, sure. But but what's stopping players or bots from running around with names like easlkjhdfgsdaijfhbgv sdlkjfhgsdf so nothing is really achieved for the immersion breaking of roleplayers. Unique names shouldn't be done away with either. I like some immersion, but it's a game not real life.

Sengarden

CROW3 wrote: »

Non- integer, non-special characters (*%#~), and player name uniqueness is the combination of first and last. So 2 toons can have the same first or 2 toons can have the same last, but 2 toons cannot have the exact same first and last names.

I guess I never considered second names being used to distinguish players with the same desired first name. It also encourages less use of lazy, non-immersive naming conventions. I’m a fan of this concept.

Caeryl

Ditto on the basic stuff, no ascii or numbers or !?$& etc. And checks for triple repeats of letters to prevent the “xXxGamerxXx” sort of stuff

I don’t want required surnames at all, but I am a fan of requiring unique names on a sever.

SongRune

ChaIk wrote: »

Forcing unique names is how you get stuff like 'JohnWasTaken,' 'XxllJohnllxX,' 'TheRealJohn,' etc. Compared to modern tag systems, it's just objectively worse. You end up with 10x more wacky usernames because everyone is twisting themselves into knots trying to find a normal-sounding name that hasn't been taken.

For a game that's bending over backward for the sake of immersion in so many other areas, I'm honestly kind of baffled that they're going to be forcing unique names. Besides milking money from name reservations, I can't think of a single reason to go with that approach.

One of the core design principles for some of the intended risk/reward tradeoffs relative to player behavior is that player reputation will matter. If there are six players with the same name, in Discord style, where you have to specifically poke them to see the difference? A good player is gonna get punished based on a bad rep they don't deserve, and a bad player is going to get away with things based on a good rep they don't deserve. While this solution works in environments where uniqueness of names isn't critical in the primary "at a glance" case, Ashes of Creation is not such an environment.

If everyone's talking in world chat about how "Chalk" is being a total asshole right now, a week later, people who were randomly half-listening aren't going to remember nor give you the benefit of the doubt that it was Chalk#4413, not Chalk#1290, even if someone bothered to type out the numbers at the time. But they might remember that it was ChaLLk instead of Chalk40.