Why is it so difficult to change names in MMOs?

mgilbrtsn

or is it difficult and they just don't want to give the option of changing names?

I periodically get some wild hair to change my name.  It could because I watched a movie, read a book, or even seen someone else's name in the game.  I go to options or character screen to find the place where I can change names... and in most games..... nothing!

Why is this?  Is it difficult code wise or is there some other reason?

Ayin

It's not hard at all.

Some games just want to milk you for some extra cash for the "feature".

In some games, it's to invoke some sense of reputation/responsibility. (games where grouping is necessary, or trading is more important, so you can't just scam people in trades, or grab drops from bosses where groups have priority ranking systems for who gets what, leave the party, change your name, and join some other group and do it all again with nobody the wiser.)

Some games cite wanting to keep "realism" where they won't let you change your appearance or anything at all, let alone a name. (but some games inconsistently allow you to change your race and main job, but NOT your name... and depending on how intrinsic those choices are to your character, often those are much bigger changes.)

I'm willing to bet *some* games store your character information in a file that contains your character name, rather than some identification code, which makes it more difficult, but hardly impossible, to change.

Just some thoughts from my many years in MMOs.

AAAMEOW

To prevent people from being jerks or scammers and get away with it.

One of the reason people want to change name is they have a bad reputation and want to change name to stay anonymous.

iixviiiix

Name change is easy around $30 is most expensive name change that i ever see , only difficult is to get a name you wanted right . More player = more name = that name is used .

Scot

You can have an account wide name, but that has issues in itself. So not being able to swap avatar names is the best way to stop player shenanigans.

Amathe

If you want something, be it a name change or anything else, someone will try to charge you money to have it.

Kyleran

DMKano said:

Accountability 

In a MMORPG? Bollocks, who believes that's still relevant these days.

Left the building with empathy and  responsibility long ago.

SpottyGekko

From a database design perspective, storing the character name as an attribute of the character's unique numeric identifier is a no-brainer. Makes for much easier sorting, searching and storing of the character's data everywhere.

"Accountability" is a fairly good reason, because if you get to "know" and like a specific player, you know what you're getting every time you group with them. Unknown randoms come with risks...

However, the idea of accountability is pretty much outdated in MMO's these days, because the concept of playing on a specific server with a relatively fixed group of players for many months is not fashionable anymore.

alkarionlog

SpottyGekko said:

From a database design perspective, storing the character name as an attribute of the character's unique numeric identifier is a no-brainer. Makes for much easier sorting, searching and storing of the character's data everywhere.

"Accountability" is a fairly good reason, because if you get to "know" and like a specific player, you know what you're getting every time you group with them. Unknown randoms come with risks...

However, the idea of accountability is pretty much outdated in MMO's these days, because the concept of playing on a specific server with a relatively fixed group of players for many months is not fashionable anymore.

meh the problem is always the database, some games require 2 things to change a name, ask for the name change, pay for it, then wait till next maint, or in some cases you need to not be logued

in some games they already made the database not use the name for anything, because they already intend to sell the cahnge name item, they just take his sweet time to put it up to prevent people nitpicking they cash shop too much

ChildoftheShadows

Sometimes it’s the developers vision for a character to not be able to change their looks or name. Just wanted to point that out because I think many tend to forget that developers will create games the way they want to play them and not how you do. 

Gdemami

...nothing to do with MMOs, vast majority of single player games won't allow name change either.

Wizardry

Been gaming so long i have pretty much figured out all the devs reasoning behind decisions but name changing is still up in the air.
So there would need be a name heck to make sure two players don't have the same name.So it would have to check the entire database for names,not tough at all for the computer and all the games already do a name check.

WE would have to know the exact setup for each game.Even still there is always an ini file that has stored information that is also often safe data that can be easily stored player side.

I do not think there is any good reasoning other than somehow the devs feel name changing would happen too often and somehow cause a log jam on that particular database server or 2 or 3.
Now one person mentioned ...by intent,the dev wants it that way to identify with the player better.Example a player might be an asshat but not done enough to get booted off the game,however it allows the players to identify that person.Could that be the reason,idk,all i have seen are designs that do not care about immersion at all,so i highly doubt devs put any thought into the immersive side of a name.

Kyleran

Gdemami said:

...nothing to do with MMOs, vast majority of single player games won't allow name change either.

Has never occurred to me to consider doing so in a single player game, but I guess some might want to.

Vermillion_Raventhal

It's money. I remember in EQ my name was changed because I named a character Verantsucks. Happened pretty quick lol.

Adamantine

Obviously you should think about a good name for your character at character creation, and not at a later point.

Personally if I would run a MMO I would only allow changing the name of a character in a MMO if it either violates the rules (such as being offensive, too explicit, violating copyrights, and on a roleplaying server also if its clearly not a fantasy name) or if there was a request by the player him- or herself, with a good reason for it (its not a fantasy name even if its not a roleplaying server, it suggests the wrong gender of the character, or some such).

Specifically the reason you give is completely against what a MMO name is supposed to be. You shouldnt make the 1000th Gandalf, Drizzt, Conan, Harry Potter etc in a MMO. It should be your own character, with an own, unique name.

After all its very easy to come up with such names.  For a fantasy name, really just pick any reallife name or even just any word and add, remove, move or change characters. For example, pick Eric and invert to Cire. Okay, now your character may be elven, so make it Ciriel, or Ciridel, or Cirinomiel.

Sovrath

Adamantine said:

Obviously you should think about a good name for your character at character creation, and not at a later point.

Personally if I would run a MMO I would only allow changing the name of a character in a MMO if it either violates the rules (such as being offensive, too explicit, violating copyrights, and on a roleplaying server also if its clearly not a fantasy name) or if there was a request by the player him- or herself, with a good reason for it (its not a fantasy name even if its not a roleplaying server, it suggests the wrong gender of the character, or some such).

Specifically the reason you give is completely against what a MMO name is supposed to be. You shouldnt make the 1000th Gandalf, Drizzt, Conan, Harry Potter etc in a MMO. It should be your own character, with an own, unique name.

After all its very easy to come up with such names.  For a fantasy name, really just pick any reallife name or even just any word and add, remove, move or change characters. For example, pick Eric and invert to Cire. Okay, now your character may be elven, so make it Ciriel, or Ciridel, or Cirinomiel.

Not everyone cares about their character name. Just like not everyone cares about how their character looks.

So "supposed to be" doesn't really apply. The name is "supposed" to be a differentiator between players.

Kyleran

Sovrath said: hu

Adamantine said:

Obviously you should think about a good name for your character at character creation, and not at a later point.

Personally if I would run a MMO I would only allow changing the name of a character in a MMO if it either violates the rules (such as being offensive, too explicit, violating copyrights, and on a roleplaying server also if its clearly not a fantasy name) or if there was a request by the player him- or herself, with a good reason for it (its not a fantasy name even if its not a roleplaying server, it suggests the wrong gender of the character, or some such).

Specifically the reason you give is completely against what a MMO name is supposed to be. You shouldnt make the 1000th Gandalf, Drizzt, Conan, Harry Potter etc in a MMO. It should be your own character, with an own, unique name.

After all its very easy to come up with such names.  For a fantasy name, really just pick any reallife name or even just any word and add, remove, move or change characters. For example, pick Eric and invert to Cire. Okay, now your character may be elven, so make it Ciriel, or Ciridel, or Cirinomiel.

Not everyone cares about their character name. Just like not everyone cares about how their character looks.

So "supposed to be" doesn't really apply. The name is "supposed" to be a differentiator between players.

Agreed and I enjoy using names I can well relate to, such as TragicallyHip or GrumpyOldDude vs some randomly made up fantasy name.

Hashbrick

It's not hard, honestly it's just a change to a field in a db.  However it is prone to abuse if it was just open to do it whenever you wanted.  The reason for the high price to change a name is because no gold seller, scammer is going to pay $25-30 to rename and untrack from the community, they are just going to find a new account to get rebanned in a few days to a week.