Player Features and Ideas Discussion

This actually makes sense.

+1

But only at the time of character purchase. Not just randomly deciding one afternoon to change a name you've had for a year.

I know of one player whose name was ALL IN CAPS. He had to jump through some hoops, but in the end he was allowed to get a name change to the same name except not All In Caps.

But as for bought name changes, sure that sounds like an excellent PLEX/ISK sink. CCP just needs to add a "Name History" tab to the character page, so everyone can see such name changes, and also all characters who have had their names changed within the last X months need to be flagged as such everywhere that trust is an issue, i.e. in Contracts and so forth. For at least X=6, and more likely X=12.

The time it takes to grind and farm enough isk to buy a character, in addition to 2 plexes just for the transfer is already a big downside.

Not all characters bought are for getting a way ahead. often people buy low sp characters for minimal tasks such as a freighter pilot.

And most importantly, its not only for those who buy characters. a lot of people end up hating the name they chose once when they were drunk, and now they're stuck with it forever just because?

P.S editing the OP to include that the name change and previous name SHOULD be visible forever and searchable, just not the headline name.

No. Can't think of anything worse than the capability of selling the same toon back to yourself, change the name, and continue ganking people with no name/history linkage.

Have you noticed though over the past few years that these threads are gaining more and more positive response?

Because CCP gradually simplifies things in EvE. As a result more and more casual players come to the game and voice their casual opinions and ideas on forums.

Then buy one with a better name or train your own character. Getting someone else's used goods is just part of the deal. If you don't like it, then don't sell your characters every time you AFK from the game for a few months like some people do.

While I agree with this I see no reason why this couldn't be implemented but in a very restrictive form. Just an idea that will probably need to be expanded on:

Upon transfer the character is granted the option of a name change for a PLEX, however this can only be done ONCE on the character. So if the character gets transferred again and the character renaming has been used the option wont be available to the new owner as it has already been used. So:

1) Characters can only be named once, with a tab on the character profile of the previous characters alias

2) Add value to characters if the name change has been used or not

The idea is that your reputation follows you forever- you can't escape it that easily

If the name change is purely cosmetic, and in no way interferes with the ability of people to track down the character, I don't see any reason why this shouldn't be implemented. Presumably, this would involve another tab on the character screen, 'Known Aliases' or something, but that should be doable.

Really, there's no good reason not to have this. Whining from gerontocrats over the ways young upstarts use to level the playing field does not constitute a 'good reason'. As EVE gets older, buying characters becomes a more and more reasonable prospect, after all. Since that's something which is allowed, and something which makes CCP money, I don't see any reason why additional conveniences might be offered as well.

For that matter, I don't see any reason why people might not pay a PLEX-based fee to rename themselves in general; 'when buying a character' is obviously a good place to change your name, but there are other legitimate reasons to do so... so why not let CCP make a bit of extra cash? What's good for CCP is good for EVE.