Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Wrong again. I never tried to shift the onus to you. You are clearly arguing against the idea of name changes, and therefore, since I clearly demonstrated that your "appeal to gameplay" argument was wrong, and since you clearly still want to argue that name changes are a bad idea, you do in fact have to come up with a different argument for why that is. That's a separate issue from whether name changes are a good idea because the point was that your argument was wrong, so it has nothing to do with putting the onus on you.

As I have demonstrated with my example, it absolutely does negatively impact the game for no good reason whatsoever given by the pro-faction. Typo in the name? That is no reason to add name changes that will be abused. Terrible name? That is not a reason because you consciously choose that name. (And as far as I know, if you buy a character, you can ask GMs to change the name.) Changed hype of the month? That is also not a reason because you consciously choose a ridiculous name according to a fluke of the time and not according to objective criteria. Spying? That is also not an argument because, as you state, there is a name history and people can just check that history to see what's what. Plus, as if people do not already have to check enough things with characters already as it is, this history would just add another layer of complication and making the lifes of recruiters just a bit worse. And the most important reason of all against this feature is AUR. We pay subscription to CCP, additional features should not cost money. That is a bad idea for clothes, for vanity items, skins and other stuff. We pay subscription for a full game, not just parts of it.

The only reason left pro name change is "I want it".

Stupidity should not be a reason for any feature introduction. Most of your reasons that I refuse to see as reasons base on stupidity.

Please explain to me where the inconsistency is between a conscious name choice and an added layer of complication. I do not see it. You make your name choice and this name choice never changes, thus checking the name for hints on past activities and recognizing a name is easy. Being able to change the name with a clearly visible history just loads up more work on recruiters to check name history tabs and waste more time on the recruitment work. Or wait ... do you really want to tell me that making a conscious and appropriate name choice is a layer of complication?

No, they cannot. They can sell their chars, but I still have that same char name set red. What they do is getting a new char adding to my database of bumpers, not changing the same name of an entry back and forth.

And if I was supposed to put effort into learning names, how about them putting effort into getting a name that does not need changing, or actually using the char bazaar and pay lots of ISK to get rid of their character? If my argument is inconsistent, your's is not the least bit more consistent. If a name change is just like the Char Bazaar or skill injecting from one char to another, what need is there for a name change mechanic in the first place that costs the same and cannot be used as often as these "name change" methods?

I think you misunderstood what I said. If the bumper sells his character, and then buys a new character, you will not be suspecting that this new character will be there to bump you, since you have no idea who the new character is. Likewise, if the bumper extracts all of his skills, and then injects those skills onto a new character, we have the same situation, where there is a completely new character who is unknown to you but who actually belongs to the bumper. So you would have to re-learn who the bumper is and memorize their new character's name, which is the same problem that you brought up with name changes - in either case the problem for you is that you have to memorize a new name - so why would this be a problem with name changes when there already exist at least two other ways for the bumper to accomplish the same task? (Also bear in mind that dealing with a bumper's brand new character would actually be a much bigger problem than dealing with the same character with a name change, because in the latter case you still have him marked in your contacts list and so he's easily identifiable.)

"Putting effort into getting a name that does not need changing" is completely irrelevant because you can say the same thing about character re-sculpts ("Put effort into making a character that doesn't need changing"). People change their minds and would like to be able to edit their characters, even if only once.

Again, buying a character off of the bazaar is NOT the equivalent of a name change. Why should the only way to change a character's name be to buy an entire character off of the bazaar, and then petition a GM to change the name of the character? Not only does this not make any sense, but it also shows that GMs can quite easily change character's names and so it would be a real piece of cake to add it to the game, with a couple caveats.

Your writing is kind of hard to understand, but if you're saying that a name change would cost the same as buying a new character, that is just completely wrong, because character prices vary significantly, you could pay anywhere from 1 to 100 billion ISK for a character, whereas a name change would have a set price and would probably be much lower than a high-end character.

I'm always torn on this name change topic.


First, I very much stand by what's left of 'accountability' in this game. The power and impact of choice. Players names are tied to that. So on that hand, I always oppose this topic.





ON THE OTHER...... Eve was the first major MMO I got into. I was fortunate enough to skip WoW. I made this char when I was 18?19? Just out of High School getting into College. I was..... very, very different then, with a very different understanding of the world, and the game.

So I always like the idea because I'd like to change my chars names to something a little less silly.




Any Name change system has to have a way to reliably and unfailingly show name history. If your system can do that, I lean toward a tentative +1. I don't want to remove what's left of the 'choice' concept, but truth be told, skill injectors has in effect destroyed what little credibility there was left in that belief.... or all but destroyed it.

How many strangers do you talk to each day and give them isk?

Old contacts set to red should not change. Any corp worth anything would press that button and see the old name before they recruit someone. Even then, the old name may tell them nothing if they are not informed...

Best argument so far.
It speaks from heart and testifies the feeling of some people playing the game for a long time.
Thanks.

Time, and money.

People with ISK in game, or RL-money, would have no issue doing the example you are exposing.
People not having ISK in game or IRL, can't, but they would be willing to pay ISK or RL-money to change their name directly.
CCP's advantage would be not to release Name Change if, and only if, the amount of RL-money is superior by your example than by "opening" this feature to less "wealthy" players.
Kind of sad point of view,, i agree, doesn't make it less accurate.

Other more important things change every hours in Real Life, it doesn't make it less enjoyable.
On the contrary.
It's like every single people would change their name the moment this thing is released.

This is YOUR point of view.

Can you lend me 100b so can do that please ?
Or you rather give me 20x100 €/$ ?

I can get on board with this, but a couple details need to be addressed.

1) Players with the pilot added to contacts should not just have the contact updated, but also get a notification.
2) Name changes history must be exposed via the the XML API for the benefit of alliances and corporations doing background checks.