Deleting characters when you unsubscribe?

Kokushibyou

 

Recently, at GDC Austin, Gordon Walton, the co-studio director at BioWare Austin, gave a lecture where he said:
"the "namespace" freed by deleting characters makes them worth deleting. He warned gamers get dissatisfied "if it takes more than three tries before they can have a name that they want." "

 http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=15386

That statement worries me a lot.  Is Bioware actually planning on deleting characters when they unsubscribe?

I think I am like a lot of people around here in that I jump back and forth between games a lot.  I have unsubscribed then re-subscribed to DAoC so many times I can't count.  But I would never re-subscribe to a game knowing I would have to rebuild all my characters from level 1.  I am not sure if Gordon thinks this will get people to stay subscribed longer so that they don't lose their characters, but personally I would never start I game if I knew that my character would be deleted if I decided to switch to a different game for a couple of months.

 

What do you think?

(BTW, in the rest of the article Gordon is quite sane and reasonable with some good ideas)

 

Adythiel

I don't see why you have to delete an unsubscribed character to free up the name space. And I can tell you right now that if a character is deleted in a game that I unsubbed for just to make room for the name, I'd never purchase another game from them. The way Cryptic handles it is a far better solution. If your character hasn't been logged in for X number of days, that name is freed up to be used by other players. If you do resub and want to play that character again, you are prompted to put in a new name. Your character isn't deleted, your hours and hours of work put into that character isn't gone.

 

Deleting characters just to free up name space? Great way to ensure players that unsub won't be coming back.

freakomar

Thats kinda gay, Ive done this many times - Buy an MMO, play the 30 day thingy get bored and resubscribe after many months for a while and so  on...

Lucifrank

I think game companies deleting characters after a player ends his or her subscription are just shooting themselves in the foot. Just from the avid gamers I know, the frequency with which gamers cancel subscriptions and may return later down the line--be it a couple months, or a couple years--is huge. When you can return to a character you've already made an investment in, that's a huge draw back to the game you abandoned. If you're starting from scratch, why return to Game X over Game Y or Z? Another thing is many of my friends return to games they might otherwise not go back to because of the social element--they miss the particular community of that game or miss old guildies who may still be in game. If you go back to reacquaint yourself with old friends, it's a heck of a lot easier to do when you don't have to play as much catch-up because you have to start again from the bottom and work your way back up.

freakomar

Originally posted by Lucifrank

I think game companies deleting characters after a player ends his or her subscription are just shooting themselves in the foot. Just from the avid gamers I know, the frequency with which gamers cancel subscriptions and may return later down the line--be it a couple months, or a couple years--is huge. When you can return to a character you've already made an investment in, that's a huge draw back to the game you abandoned. If you're starting from scratch, why return to Game X over Game Y or Z? Another thing is many of my friends return to games they might otherwise not go back to because of the social element--they miss the particular community of that game or miss old guildies who may still be in game. If you go back to reacquaint yourself with old friends, it's a heck of a lot easier to do when you don't have to play as much catch-up because you have to start again from the bottom and work your way back up.

100% agreed.

Ozmodan

Only thing I have to throw out is that how many existing game constantly send emails to ex vets to get them to try out the new changes in the game.  My answer would be most, seems like a very inexpensive way to swell your playerbase for established games.  Removing old players just eliminates this and is entirely stupid.

Ginkeq

Apparently they haven't thought of renaming characters instead of just deleting them.  That means they don't have bright people working there and their game will no doubt be a massive failure.

paulscott

at one point I would have totaly be playing EvE instead of wurm online(found EvE first).  however I frequently take a summer break, take time for school break.  that it wouldn't have made sense for me to play with the 3 month character deletion.

 

this guy is just trying to force words down our throats so he can save a few gigs of space on databases.

bonobotheory

I think it's just plain dumb. My characters are what keep me coming back to the game. In a typical MMO, the player can do nothing to affect the world, so our characters are what we've worked on, what we've created with our playing time.

I quit playing WoW for about a year. When I reopened my account, it wasn't because I wanted to start a brand-new character and level him up from scratch. It was because I wanted to play my level 60 Warrior. Had my character not been there, had I been made to start from scratch, I would have started from scratch in a different game.

If BioWare decide to include this "feature" in their MMO, I hope they make it clear from the beginning so I know not to bother with it.

Slanger

You would certainly lose a certain amount of re-subscriptions. Pretty much every mmorpg I've played I have come back to months or years later, so my characters being deleted would obviously discourage me from ever playing again. Will it stop everyone from playing? Depends on how good the game is.

JonnyHelfire

 

Forum Poll

What do you think of deleting characters when a person unsubscribes?
	I would never play a game that deletes my characters! 62.5%
	I don't like the idea, but it wouldn't stop me from playing a good game. 37.5%
	It is a good idea. 0.0%
	I will absolutely play any game where I know my characters will get deleted when I leave! 0.0%
Based on 32 votes.

Wow looks like everybody in this forum is sane. If anybody votes for any of the bottom ones then I would think they were mentally retarted...

paulscott

OMG he's controling this thread as well, this is systemic, half the forum base must be his minions, must bump up so everyone can voice the sane opinion.

shameless bump

LadyChaos

Yeah, deleting an inactive customer's characters is really stupid.  Someone at Bioware must have had too much to drink at AGDC.   I've heard too many good things about Bioware to believe they could go through with that.  OK, the character naming dilemma needs to be addressed, not "should we delete characters?"  Are you listening, developers?  Requiring character names to be unique creates that problem.  Allow multiple characters to carry the same first name, but require the combo of first and last names to be unique?  another possibility is to charge a micro-trans fee to customers who want to "stable" their characters for an indefinate period - say, $1 per month for 1 to 5 characters, $2 for 6 to 10 characters, etc...   Then those who know they'll never come back will be releasing their character names.  Hey, while I'm on a roll,  when the player leaves, thier character becomes an npc.

This next solution may not go over so good, but if the player doesn't return for 1 year, delete the name, giving a placeholder name and keep the characters inventory, stats, skills, etc..  If the player return he/she would then have to rename said character.

nomadian

It also says something along the lines of letting people leave with the idea that they will subscribe in sessions/come back at a later date. So, a small contradiction there.

JennysMind

I really don't understand why this has to be a problem. I think it's ok to delete any character who never made it past the free trial. But if a person pays a subscription and then cancels, move the inactive characters to a separate database after a specified amount of time. If the person comes back and resubscribes, allow the player to retrieve his characters.

Mysk

This guy contradicts himself later in the interview when he uses City of Heroes as an example. Apparently he unsubscribes and resubscribes with some frequency.

Apparently, Gordon isn't able to compare his "lessons" to his real life experiences. Would he have resubscribed to CoH (so many times) if his characters had been deleted when he unsubscribed? I suspect not.

Personally I wouldn't ever bother with a MMO that deletes my characters after I unsubscribe. I for one do not have the time nor inclination to remain permanently subscribed to any one MMO, so yes, I'm going to unsub. There are other options to explore, and aside from that I have a life outside of these games.

If the company can't understand that then they're not going to get my money.

Then again, much of the interview kind of turned me off of Bioware's MMO-in-progress.

~Mysk

Faelan

When I decided to leave SWG due to the NGE, I gave away all my stuff to ensure that I wouldn't get suckered back into the game by some odd craving 3 months later only to rediscover why I left it to begin with. Deleting my character(s), while saving space and giving someone else the chance to reuse my name, is the quickest way to ensure that I won't be returning at a later date to check out new content etc.

stickm

Why has not a single person here responded to the actual quote...

He said freeing up NAMESPACE makes it worth it... I kinda agree with this... try finding an good name after a game has bene open for 5 years and has had like 30 million characters created.

Ackbar

Well with games that have multiple servers it really shouldnt be that much of a problem. If it is your name is probably unoriginal and stupid anyway. A place where its tough is something like guildwars. Its impossible to find a half decent name in that game.

 

Anyway In my opinion you shouldnt be forced to protect the name of your character by continuing to subscribe cause in my opinion the name of your character is really important. And its an integral part of that character. Forcing you to name change if you wanna come back to the game is silly.

Faelan

Originally posted by stickm


Why has not a single person here responded to the actual quote...
He said freeing up NAMESPACE makes it worth it... I kinda agree with this... try finding an good name after a game has bene open for 5 years and has had like 30 million characters created.

The solution to that is easy. Use first AND last names for identifying characters rather than first names only.

bonobotheory

Originally posted by stickm


Why has not a single person here responded to the actual quote...
He said freeing up NAMESPACE makes it worth it... I kinda agree with this... try finding an good name after a game has bene open for 5 years and has had like 30 million characters created.

Because he can't think of a better way to free up namespace than to simply delete characters (even though he mentions City of Heroes, which frees up names without deleting the characters).  I prefer the ability to come back to my character after some off-time over the ability to give my character an unoriginal name someone else already thought of.

DeserttFoxx

Originally posted by Ginkeq


Apparently they haven't thought of renaming characters instead of just deleting them.  That means they don't have bright people working there and their game will no doubt be a massive failure.

 

The fact that these guys made knights of the old republic 1 and 2 and jade empire proves you are wrong, i doubt they will delete character upon unsub.

[Deleted User]

The user and all related content has been deleted.

observer

It's kind of desperate to threaten customers from unsubscribing.  Turbine recently did this with LotRO too, before unsubscribing, there was a message that said something like, "Your characters may be deleted".

It's just scare tactics to keep you subscribed.

Classicstar

Originally posted by Adythiel


I don't see why you have to delete an unsubscribed character to free up the name space. And I can tell you right now that if a character is deleted in a game that I unsubbed for just to make room for the name, I'd never purchase another game from them. The way Cryptic handles it is a far better solution. If your character hasn't been logged in for X number of days, that name is freed up to be used by other players. If you do resub and want to play that character again, you are prompted to put in a new name. Your character isn't deleted, your hours and hours of work put into that character isn't gone.
 
Deleting characters just to free up name space? Great way to ensure players that unsub won't be coming back.

Also a x numbers of days is stupid if i have played a character for months or longer people start to know you friends or peeps from your clan or just peeps you meet ingame if even after a few days i would lose my name i quit:P

ianubisi

If they follow the model than COX follows, which Mr. Walton's clear acquaintance with should mean he sees and perhaps enjoys, then I wouldn't worry at all.

If you're not familiar with it, your characters go on a 90-day hold when your account expires. After those 90 days, someone can claim your name. Let's say you get the name Biggles, and after 90 days someone else decides to try to take it...they will get the name. If you reup your account and try to connect with the character it will indicate that your character name is taken and you are provided a renaming token and must use it. I don't mind this system...it seems perfect fair to me...my character is still there, with all my hard-earned stats...I just need to give it a new name.

That was Mr. Walton's concern in his comments...namespace. He wants to be sure that Aragorn is available to the general populace. Fair enough. But if he actually deletes my characters after some period from when I cancel my account I'll personally write him a very nasty letter.