Posts with tag name-change

As is often the case with Breakfast Topics, I write about what interests me, asking commenters questions that I genuinely want to know the answers to. So it should be no surprise that I read the comments pretty religiously, and often they will spark ideas that lead to more Breakfast Topics. You've only yourselves to blame for being such interesting folk.

On a recent BT about gender in WoW, two commenters got my attention. Dez and Nagaina, thanks for replying! The parts that caught my eye from their comments were as follows:

Dez wrote: I know some players consider their toons to be extensions of themselves (1st-person narrative), but personally I see them more as other people whose adventures I am following (3rd-person narrative).

Nagaina wrote: I'm principally a roleplayer. When I create a character, I'm usually doing so for storyline related reasons not representing myself in game related ones.

I personally consider my characters to be extensions of myself. When I refer to them, mentally I'm thinking, "I'm over here," "I'm getting my face chewed off by a murloc," or "I'm going to get myself a kickass new cloak." When I'm talking in game, I do much the same.

The idea of the character as a third person fascinates me. I suppose it might be reflected in games like The Sims where you control the life of a character in a different way or maybe in FPS games where you're controlling a character with a predefined story. Or perhaps it's something that is a big part of roleplaying, creating a story for a character that is (maybe by definition) not your own story. I freely admit to knowing barely anything about roleplaying, so of course there is the strong possibility that all that might be utter nonsense!

What do you think? Are your characters extensions of yourself? Are you representing yourself in game? Or, like Dez and Nagaina, are you following a third person? And why?

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As promised, Blizzard's been slowing rolling out its new guild services to new realms. It's now added the Whirlwind and Emberstorm battlegroups and will continue to add more realms in the coming weeks.

Guild services include realm transfer, name change, and faction change, among other things. You can read the complete FAQ at our original announcement post, and after the break, find a list of both the previously available realms and a list of the newly added realms.

A WoW forum-goer recently asked why Blizzard was charging for premium services like character server transfers, re-customizations, and the other multitude of options and services Blizzard provides players. Blizzard Community Manager Zarhym hit the thread to discuss the nature of Blizzard's premium services for players and let players know that really, premium services are for people who want them and feel they are worth the cost.

Zarhym first makes the point that these features and premium services are in no way made to be needed to play the game. In fact, I'd take things a step forward and say that so far, Blizzard has been exceptionally good at providing only cosmetic and quality-of-life premium services, where other games could have already cashed in on a playerbase like WoW's. These optional services can improve your own personal quality of life, be it race-changing to an obviously superior blood elf or transferring servers to be with a new guild, but they are not tied to the core gameplay experience.

Zarhym's full statement, after the break.

I first changed my name in high school. From Sakay, I flipped it over to Hugo, my given name taken from my father (and his father, and his father's father). In college, I went by Kensai, a name that stuck for a while since most of my current friends were from that period in my life. For a brief time an ex-girlfriend's circle of friends called me Saint (both from the Kensai and the movie Things to Do in Denver When You're Dead). When I entered the workforce, I swapped that over for the Zach that's on my byline now. That little idiosyncrasy has actually allowed me to remember people from where I met them. If someone says hi and calls me Sakay, for example, I know I met them in elementary school. I'm sneaky that way.

It's character re-customization in real life. Or paid name change. Except I didn't actually have to fork $10 to get it done. We re-customize ourselves all the time, changing clothes more often (hopefully, anyway!) than our characters upgrade their gear. Some changes are more drastic -- losing or gaining weight, shaving our heads (it worked for Justin Timberlake), or even changing jobs or moving house. It's all part of how we continue to re-customize our lives.

If we could re-customize ourselves as easily as we could the way we change our characters, what would you change and why? Or maybe you've just gone through a makeover recently -- from a haircut to the whole shebang -- tell us about it on this drab weekend morning. Now if only we could get real life Gold just as easily...

New around here? WoW Rookie points WoW's newest players to the resources they need to get acclimated. Send us a note to suggest a WoW Rookie topic.

Your character's name is literally the essence of your World of Warcraft experience. Think about it: from the way you think of your character (a roleplaying personality, a tool for gaming achievements, an expression of yourself) to the way others see you, your name plays a defining role.

While Blizzard indulges in the occasional sly riff on pop culture and even pays homage to the WoW community when naming NPCs (non-player characters) and items, you may find yourself dismayed by the results after attempting to do the same with your own characters. The way we see it, character names are like tattoos – and what seemed like a great idea at 1 a.m. on a Saturday night might not smell so fresh in the harsh light of day.

Naming characters can seem overwhelming to a new player, especially if you're creating a character on an established server where many popular name combinations have already been claimed. Let's cover the basics of finding an appealing name that won't wear thin or break any rules.

Vinna asked in the comments to yesterday's Breakfast Topic, "How do you feel when a guildmate makes a character with a questionable name, i.e. offensive/borderline offensive?" After all, your name appears above your guild name, so should guilds be policing their members' alt names?

We already know that unless someone reports a name, it doesn't get changed. We also know that there are some extremely offensive names out there. So, if you are in a guild you want to stay in and someone makes an alt with a name that offends you what should you do, if anything?

Much like yesterday's Breakfast Topic, this is another story of an identity crisis. I recently discovered the wonders of being a Mage and she has replaced my Druid as my main. I changed the first letter of a favorite name, Kira, into something more Blood Elf looking (to my way of thinking): Qira. It's pretty and simple.

Then one day I Googled it. It's the name of a village that some people consider to have been ethnically cleansed [Edited to be more neutral--I had such a kneejerk reaction that I didn't even research it]. I immediately paid to change the name without even spending the time to come up with a good substitute. Robiness is a fun name for an It came from the Blog character, but do I really want it for my new main?

If I had slept on it, rather than changing my name instantly, I may not have changed it. After all, it wasn't my intention to commemorate anything like that. And you can't change it again for 30 days. So now what? Do I keep the name Robiness or do I change it again in a week or so when I am able? Have any of you gone through something similar?

Once upon a time, at the beginning of 2005, just a few months after WoW was released, The Spousal Unit made the switch and traded in his Dwarf Paladin for a Tauren Shaman and never looked back. He brought a couple other classes up to 70 and made lame attempts at duos with me, but Onnix the Shammy was the only character he really wanted to play.

Then Wrath of the Lich King came out. He immediately took Onnix to Northrend and started questing. But he took a brief break to make a Death Knight, so that it could sit and get rest while he leveled his main. He decided to make an Orc because they look good in plate and we picked his name from a Celtic god of death (who ended up being a goddess). He didn't spend much time on the look and didn't care too much about the name because this was just a throwaway character.

It seems Blizzard has been listening to the complaints and concerns of players. I've been taken aback by the implementation of paid name changes, PvE to PvP transfers and gender changes. For years, I've read clamoring for race, faction and class changes.

Zarhym weighed in Wolfbite of Chromaggus' thread in the general forums requesting class changes. Name and appearance changes are purely cosmetic, while allowing class changes would affect the overall dynamics of the game. Later in the thread Zarhym stated that this is partially to avoid creating a "flavor of the month" class, and would prefer to address player concerns. Rerolling was the most common prescription amongst posters to solve the original poster's issue.

European CM Thundgot announced today that the cooldown periods for both paid character transfer and paid character name changes have been reduced from three months to one month, effective immediately. The transfer cooldown was originally six months when the feature was introduced in June 2006, but was reduced to three in October 2006. In the intervening time, they've looked at server logs and so forth and come to the conclusion that moving it to one month would not have catastrophic consequences.

This change appears to be effective on the US realms as well, so wherever you are, you can hop servers and adopt new aliases every month if you want to pay for it. Also, Thundy clarifies that as long as your last transfer/name change was at least 30 days ago, you are immediately eligible for transfer/name change now. He also said that "moving forward" the price for paid transfer is going to be 20€/£15, but given his phrasing and the fact that I'm on the North American realms, I can't tell if that pricing is new or not. Do any of you know? Edit: Not new; thanks.

Picking a pet's name is always one of the decisions I like best in WoW. It's creative and interesting, and if done right, it can bring lots of smiles to you and your friends. Naming your own character is also fun of course, but even in light of the name-changing feature, it still feels so permanent to me. With your pets, you can name more than one, and there's always the possibility that in the future you'll get to find some new and incredibly awesome pet and get to think of a name for that one too. Excellent pet namers even have special synergy between their hunter and pet names -- a creative feat which is at once challenging and simple.

Mania's Arcania has an interesting little feature: in addition to all her other hunter and pet information, she's started a sort of "contest" called "Name That Pet," where hunters can submit pics of their pets for public inspection, and we all get to help them think of names for them. The latest pet in the series presents an great opportunity for hunter-pet name synergy: an owl tamed by the tauren Hawkspirit. In her blog, Hawkspirit's player shows how her owl finally reached 70, but still doesn't have a name, and Mania is here to help her out.

If you're interested in pet names, check it out and apply your naming genus.

It's been a couple weeks now since the paid name change service was initially offered and I've noticed a few people in my guild that have taken advantage of it. While it's certainly personal preference, a lot of the changed names seem worse to me than the old ones. Some of them were obviously chosen for comic value, since they're reminiscent of the guy in the picture over here.

Regardless of my opinions about the specific names, everyone I've talked to has said that the service was quick and easy. I also haven't heard any horror stories regarding sociopathic players changing their names to wreak more havoc upon unsuspecting victims under a new moniker. From my limited experience, it seems like an overall positive change to the game.

Have you paid to change your name? What was your old one and what's your new one? Was your experience with the service a good one?

While Robin and I think it's a great idea, some people are in an outcry about the upcoming name-change service that Blizzard is offering. As Monsoon tells Blizzard on the forums:

This is probably the worst ever decision ever made. How are we supposed to track ninjas and retards who may apply to our guild if there is no way to track their name changes?"

Nethaera calmly responds:

Perhaps putting them on an ignore list might help.

The ignore list will be automatically updated once that character's name change gets activated. Of course no system is fool proof, and there will always be someone looking to exploit things, but realistically, is it a terribly big problem if people you consider "ninjas" and "retards" yet are still unwilling to put on your ignore list can change their names once every 90 days?

In my experience, the kind of person who likes to call others "retards" generally isn't very nice themselves, and tends to find new "retards" all the time (with no offense meant to Monsoon here). I don't think it would be possible, even if the ignore list were extended to include a potential thousands of names, for some people to be satisfied that all the "ninjas" and "retards" were sufficiently dealt with and removed from the system