Time to Discuss Special Characters in Names?

I was looking back and was surprised not to find a mega-thread about this, already in creation.

Not sure about the rest of you, but yours truly really, really, REALLY, REALLY HATES seeing special characters in names, in-game. Unless you have a chart right there explaining how to make the special characters, (which I used to do, as a guild officer) then it can be a real pain the arse to have to figure out how to whisper these people. Older games left you out to dry, while some newer games allow you to reliably right-click on someone's name in a chat-box, and then whisper them - when it works! SWTOR was especially bad about this, because there was only a 50% chance that right-clicking on someone's name that had a special character would then allow you to whisper that person.

Yours truly would greatly enjoy it if AoC were to dis-allow special characters in the in-game naming conventions. Yes, I understand that you want to name your dwarf Gimli, (you know, since this is LoTR, and there WON'T be 500 other people in-game won't also be naming their dwarf this....) but if I'm trying to message you, it's really, REALLY annoying to figure out the Alt+Combo to type out your stupid Umlaut over the one i and the pseudo-apostrophe over the other.

This isn't yet addressed in the Character Naming section on the wiki. Anyone else against special characters in the in-game names?

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daveywavey

The main thing I hate the most is when someone puts something like: "vxXox...xoXxv"

Just does my nut in.

Warth

Tyranthraxus wrote: »

I was looking back and was surprised not to find a mega-thread about this, already in creation.

Not sure about the rest of you, but yours truly really, really, REALLY, REALLY HATES seeing special characters in names, in-game. Unless you have a chart right there explaining how to make the special characters, (which I used to do, as a guild officer) then it can be a real pain the arse to have to figure out how to whisper these people. Older games left you out to dry, while some newer games allow you to reliably right-click on someone's name in a chat-box, and then whisper them - when it works! SWTOR was especially bad about this, because there was only a 50% chance that right-clicking on someone's name that had a special character would then allow you to whisper that person.

Yours truly would greatly enjoy it if AoC were to dis-allow special characters in the in-game naming conventions. Yes, I understand that you want to name your dwarf Gimli, (you know, since this is LoTR, and there WON'T be 500 other people in-game won't also be naming their dwarf this....) but if I'm trying to message you, it's really, REALLY annoying to figure out the Alt+Combo to type out your stupid Umlaut over the one i and the pseudo-apostrophe over the other.

This isn't yet addressed in the Character Naming section on the wiki. Anyone else against special characters in the in-game names?

i'm against special characters and even numbers.
Foreign language letters like for example ä ö ü ô é è should be okay.

halbarz

Special characters would mean that we will get a bunch of CoD / Fornite names, seeing them just makes me angry. To be honest they would be the first I kill or ask the server then hunt down :P

Cypher

Yeah definitely don’t want to see someone with a name that’s just 10 squares. Or those wild ones where it’s a mess of random characters.

I think at MOST, I’d be fine with a couple of the foreign vowels with dots or apostrophes above them ONLY if I’m able to easily click on them or have an in game converter that allowed you to input special characters (think how holding down a letter on the iPhone brings up alternate characters)

Oh and not a special character but I absolutely think people should be allowed 1 or 2 apostrophes in their name. Don’t make it unlinked or you’ll end up with C’o’o’l’G’a’m’e’r types running around.

Frostshot1

I agree having a bunch of punctuation marks and dashes as a name would irritate me. I do hope that they allow us to put spaces so we can make a first and last name situation. If someone were to nab the name you wanted first.

Enthused

Special characters are dumb. I'm surprised that WoW allows it. Hopefully they don't here.

Songcaller

I came across a Youtube Name that was:

And the name literally makes a white line right across the page. Needless to say, I did not appreciate the effort and I don't like to face complex names unless there is a right click and send whisper/message button.

I certainly won't be doing any /invite T@mmy (If we were allowed macros).

Edit: The Name was a line of dashes. Its difficult to see on the forum background.

Vhaeyne

Not a fan of the special characters.

They are ugly,
they are a gateway to bad/dumb names,
they lead to repetitive names,
they make inviting people annoying,
they can be used to abusively to get around language filters,
I am sure there are other reasons.

My favorite system is:
Name must be one string of text (No spaces or underscore),
only A-Z,
The game will handle case on its own so that the first letter is capital, and all other letters are lowercase,
mature language filter parses names.

I don't know what AOC will use. Obviously no system is a deal breaker for me. I just prefer to see sensible character names, and unfortunately the only way that happens is with a few draconian rules (which is something I am normally against.). I would prefer everyone just has a culture of putting some effort into naming their character, but there are people out there who think "Asmöngöld_1xxx" is a perfectly valid and original name.

Noaani

daveywavey wrote: »

The main thing I hate the most is when someone puts something like: "vxXox...xoXxv"

Just does my nut in.

I've said a few times around here that I don't refuse people entry in to my guild in games based on race or other such factors - if they are up to the standard.

I have, however, refused a number of players entry to the guild based on their character name.

If a characters name isn't immediately recognizable as a name, I want nothing to do with them.

Lughlaoch

Vhaeyne wrote: »

Not a fan of the special characters.

They are ugly,
they are a gateway to bad/dumb names,
they lead to repetitive names,
they make inviting people annoying,
they can be used to abusively to get around language filters,
I am sure there are other reasons.

My favorite system is:
Name must be one string of text (No spaces or underscore),
only A-Z,
The game will handle case on its own so that the first letter is capital, and all other letters are lowercase,
mature language filter parses names.

I don't know what AOC will use. Obviously no system is a deal breaker for me. I just prefer to see sensible character names, and unfortunately the only way that happens is with a few draconian rules (which is something I am normally against.). I would prefer everyone just has a culture of putting some effort into naming their character, but there are people out there who think "Asmöngöld_1xxx" is a perfectly valid and original name.

Agreed.
However, I'd like to see the idea of "last names" incorporated. I typically use the same name(s) in most games and am able to secure as they're not "mainstream." As in life, many first and last names are the same Ask John Smith how he feels about naming convention. But if I want my name to be Aurora, I can guess there is someone with that name already (still gonna try). But, Aurora Oakenhammer, now I bet that's not taken. I'm now happy and still my unique self. No underscore, no strange characters, etc. As ESO has implemented, the "behind the scenes" operations for guilds is handled by login name (@aurora123) . But, one can still send mail/invites based on screen name - with autofill function. Pretty nifty.

Keep up the amazing work! So looking forward to experiencing the game!

Vhaeyne

Lughlaoch wrote: »

Agreed.
However, I'd like to see the idea of "last names" incorporated. I typically use the same name(s) in most games and am able to secure as they're not "mainstream." As in life, many first and last names are the same Ask John Smith how he feels about naming convention. But if I want my name to be Aurora, I can guess there is someone with that name already (still gonna try). But, Aurora Oakenhammer, now I bet that's not taken. I'm now happy and still my unique self. No underscore, no strange characters, etc.

https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Families

We have the family system. Which will make having the Oakenhammer last name more of a real thing. Not just a string of text.

Lughlaoch wrote: »

As ESO has implemented, the "behind the scenes" operations for guilds is handled by login name (@aurora123) . But, one can still send mail/invites based on screen name - with autofill function. Pretty nifty.

I don't like systems like this or the blizzard ID system. I always end up setting myself to invisible or offline. I don't want everyone I know to know what character I am on at all times. Just because I talked to you one time on one character does not mean you know all of my characters. All systems like this do is make me not use the in game friends list. I like more of the old school, each character has its own friends list, and mail. I don't want to get messages from people I know on my main if I am on a alt. Maybe I am a luddite about this type of thing.

Songcaller

Vhaeyne wrote: »

I don't like systems like this or the blizzard ID system. I always end up setting myself to invisible or offline. I don't want everyone I know to know what character I am on at all times. Just because I talked to you one time on one character does not mean you know all of my characters. All systems like this do is make me not use the in game friends list. I like more of the old school, each character has its own friends list, and mail. I don't want to get messages from people I know on my main if I am on a alt. Maybe I am a luddite about this type of thing.

I agree but it won't happen in Ashes. IS want espionage to be a potential in Ashes. Can't really do espionage if you're visibly on Alt12 of 12 lol.

Chufu

I think developers can't really forbid special characters in games, probably you can forbid to not use 3x times the same letter, but don't forget that elfish characters probably have accents on their names, so I see why people would like to use them.

T Elf

I would like to see an accent mark ' or hyphen - in names, but that's it.

Vhaeyne

Chufu wrote: »

I think developers can't really forbid special characters in games, probably you can forbid to not use 3x times the same letter, but don't forget that elfish characters probably have accents on their names, so I see why people would like to use them.

They absolutely can forbid any special characters, many games do.

Just because some fantasy languages use accents does not mean that players need accents in their names.
Because we are not literally using fantasy languages it is fare to assume that we as players are transliterating from the in game fantasy language text to the text we use as players.

As much as I love the latin æ and like the way it looks in my name. "Vhæyne" I know it is unreasonable for me to expect anyone else to know how to type it. Which is why I don't use it.

Shootersa

But i love to call my self IlIlIlIlIlIlIlIl

I think special characters are a gray area. I know some people would like things such as, ë, é, ö, ó. etc
but enabling special characters as a whole brings allot of weird things with it. Then there are also people who use different keyboards or special characters standard keyboards can't type.

I think it would be best to disable them but to keep the common ones like i described before. Its also a pain in the ass to whisper someone if you can't even type their name properly.

George_Black

'
The above should be acceptable.

Khronus

daveywavey wrote: »

The main thing I hate the most is when someone puts something like: "vxXox...xoXxv"

Just does my nut in.

So you won't like my ranger named xXx-69Legolas420-xXx?

Leiloni

Warth wrote: »

i'm against special characters and even numbers.
Foreign language letters like for example ä ö ü ô é è should be okay.

Agreed we need these just because we'll have French speaking people on both NA and EU servers and at least in NA, we'll have all English language servers so people should at least be able to write their name how it was intended to look. I don't know how to type them but as long as I can right click a name in chat to invite someone to groups or whisper that's all I need. Other special characters and symbols, don't need those in names.

Khronus

I'm ok with special characters (to an extent) as long as we are able to easily add them to guild, friend invite and communicate with them via whispering. I'm not a fan at all of seeing an abundance of special characters for no reason but if it fits their roleplaying tendencies, that is great.

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