Should there be Strict Character Naming Policies to help Immersion for MMORPGs?

Distopia

rodingo said:

I think some kind of enforcement would be nice but like others said, it depends on the game. 

There are two instances of stupid names that I can remember.  First was in SWG in which one of the first player jedi on my server named his toon XxclownxX.  It was one thing that SOE put player jedi into the game and the other was someone made a name that just rubbed me the wrong way.  That's what made me switch from Master Smuggler and mix of other various profession skills to increase my in game business and money making scheme to a Master BH/TK so I could hunt that idiot. I never did get him on the mission terminals though.  Still felt good to kill other player jedi though.

The other was a gnome rogue in WoW named Stabby McStabStab.  No little soliloquy associated with that one other than the mix of that name and the race really annoyed me for some reason.

I can't be certain it was him but a RL friend of mine played Gnomes in both WOW and EQ2, he used that name lol on one of them. 

iixviiiix

They should have option about first name , middle name and last name

TatsuyaHiroki

honestly I dont really care about nicknames

though it can be quite hilarious when in serious toned mmos you run into nicknames such as xxMLGNoScoperxx and other wannabe hilarious people

Amathe

Let silly people call themselves silly things. That way we know who they are before we are an hour into a dungeon with them. 

Mendel

One thing I really don't like are the games that (by default) append the login email name to the character name.  Names like Mendel.MendelGaming@mail.com really annoy me.  Giving out the email address is just an invitation for others to spam an innocent account, whose only purpose is to keep the game company generated spam separate from actual useful email if I used a 'real' account, like MendelBusiness@mail.com.

I think that minor liberties with privacy issues like this are far more of a problem that simple naming standards.

Jill52

(picture from Sword Art Online Abridged series)

I'm very particular on how I name my own characters. Sometimes I spend hours on just that part of character creation. After all, that's the name you could be using for years. However, we all know how frustrating it is to find a name that isn't taken (especially in a game that's been around for years).

There could be a special RP server with strict naming rules. This will be for the people who actually roleplay in a massive multiplayer online role playing game (sadly a concept that has been all but lost in recent years). That way all the xXxKirit0xXx's and Ikillzjoo123's can play on the normal servers with the others who could care less about immersion or roleplay.

Another solution could be to assign each character an ID number (like an ICQ number for those who remember that). Then their character name can be anything and even the same as someone else just like in the real world. Their character name will be displayed over their head and in chat. You find someone's ID number by clicking them (or their name in the chat window) and looking at their details.

In any case, I don't think that strict naming policies using a traditional naming system can work on a normal main server. All the acceptable names will be taken too quickly.

madazz

Terrible question. Like nearly all questions asked on here, the only answer is "IT DEPENDS ON WHETHER IT SUITS THE GAME". You cannot lay a blanket rule down for all MMO games.

VegasGamer75

Kyleran said:

I'm pretty flexible until I start seeing"vomit face", "Really Big Uns" or outright obscene or hateful names.

I am in the same boat. I've seen some amusing names or plays on real-life persons names in games and it hasn't bothered me, especially in a more modern setting game. But when I see MegaWangVagDestoryer or some other absurdity in a game it just kills the moment for me. I expect that sort of thing if I am settling in for some Overwatch, sure, but when it comes to a fleshed out world MMO, I'd like something that at least made sense. 

G4NK3D

Uhhh no....  Because there never has been and doesn't need to be.  Your opinion of what someones name SHOULD be in your little online world may not fit what THEY believe their name should be.  It has never been that way and doesn't need to be.

Ishkal

nope immersion is relative to each player.  Why should single players paying the same amount or even paying at all in a f2p be restricted in what they think is fun. Most games have a turn off player names feature use that if a name puts sand in yer clit

Loke666

Certain names are annoying but it is rather hard to police it. Also there are a limi ted number of really good names.

Still, it would be nice to get rid of L33telf and Ubertank.

berenim

Clearly depends on the game for me.
 Anarchy Online hat a name generator for first and last names, while your nick was put in the middle with quotes. So it seemed more like a callsign to me. In that case I can live with more names than in a strict fantasy setting. For that I liked Ryzom policies, which prohibited titles and loony character sequences.
 There are always borders that destroy immersion, no matter what. Like blunt offenses, or some real life references. Some try to be smart by masking their insults in foreign languages, like I once saw someone using German words. Usually those are prohibited mby rules anyway.
 As immersion is something different for different people it can't clearly be said if stricter rules would help. It certainly does for me, as for others it doesn't. They don't care, but perhaps feel more immersed by action combat, which in most times is a total immersion breaker for me. They are immersed by the tension and less by the world, I am more by the world (including characters and their names) and totally torn out if I am more concerned with button sequences than atmosphere.

 All we can get here in this thread is a snapshot of opinions, no real truth or answer.

Eldurian

I personally prefer to play on servers with stricter naming conventions.  I've used roleplay names 100% of the time in every game for about the last decade now, and I enjoy environments where people do the same. If that limits the community a bit, so be it. Something tells me the people you would lose because they can't name themselves xXDeathLordXx or RonJeremy69 are the kind of people who would drive others away from the game anyway, and I'd rather have the people they'd drive away than them.

In games with multiple servers though, I see no reason not to open up a cesspool that will attract the undesirables of your community to one place.

Vermillion_Raventhal

I stopped caring.  I would prefer to have first and last names plus a nickname and official title.  Let you display your name how you like.  Nickname or the character's first or last name.  Like James as a first name or Bozo as a nickname or Mr. Louis or whatever. 

I do have a WoW hunter named Todanee with pets named Arrow.

Lithuanian

Option  - mixed servers.
In short - names should be meaningfull. No sexual references, no hatred. In Lotro, my toon "Xgrinder" was renamed very quickly and I had no problem with renaming. It was Laurelin, role-play server.  Yes, I had to contact support and explain something about my names. Once again - no problems with that.
On other Lotro servers, I have WoneA, Xgrinder and other disposable toons. No problems with that.
If Lotro was strict with names, I would choose not "Xgrinders", but something easy to remember.

Kyleran

Ishkal said:

nope immersion is relative to each player.  Why should single players paying the same amount or even paying at all in a f2p be restricted in what they think is fun. Most games have a turn off player names feature use that if a name puts sand in yer clit

Most of the games I play have not had an option to turn off player names, or if they did you had to turn offf everyone's name which I'm not in favor of.

What would be nice is an option to selectively turn off player names on an individial character basis, such as an ignore feature.

There is one long in development title, (dead now?) title Citadel of Sorcery that was going to provide the option to ignore players and they would disappear completely from your personal view of the world.

I would have loved to see how that played out.

SavageHorizon

Eronakis said:

MMORPG's for me has always been about logging into a world and experiencing that world through the lens of your character. When I play MMO's I want to experience immersion. One thing that breaks immersion for me is when you see character names that are screen names, not character names.

For an example, Everquest and Vanguard are good examples of where the majority of players have character names over screen names because those players typically took the game serious as if there character was apart of that world. World of Warcraft on the other hand is on the opposite side of the spectrum with more screen names than character names. Of course you can't get every single player to have a character name but it's nice when the majority of the community does. 

So I am curious to see what your thoughts are. If an MMO had a serious tone and wants the player to have the best immersion experience but also eliminating character names that are merely screen names would you be okay with that? 

I guess you have never played on a dev supported RP server. Now days rp just means you can rp but it's not supported. 

If you want to see what a truly supported rp server is like then log into lotro European Luarelin server. 

You make a name that sounds dumb and totally immersion breaking you will log out then log in to find your name gone. 

You will be forced to make a new name and so you should. 

Iwaylo

The character name shouldnt matter, it personally doesnt break my immersion. I mean if he names himself with some random shiet like symbols and such that sux but what MMORPG has that LUL i definetly dont play such MMORPGs.  
  
And LOL @ people judging others by nickname. I remember meeting some dude ingame with nick Ieatass and he was great player and nice person.

Kyleran

Well, back when WOW launched in 2004 making sure you had a lore appropriate name was more of an accepted practice from earlier MMORPG's.

My son was 12 at the time and he created a character called "punkrocker".

We had only been playing for a few days when someone sent him a whisper and strongly admonished him for have a "bad name".

Well, if he reported it Blizzard didn't seem to care and punkrocker went on to have a long an illustrious career.

So no, names like this don't really break my immersion, but I just assume everyone who creates such is "12", either in actual age or social development.  

Tgiordano92

It breaks my immersion. I think really hard into creating my character names, as well as how they look. I am not a roleplayer really, but just matching the setting of a game is important to me.