Old names

[Gharan]

After deleting a few characters and starting again I came across a problem. Within a day both my names Gharin and Vigel had been taken and used to either try and gain items or generally harass other players while using my name. I even have a log of the guy admitting taking them, not just my names either. Logs are useless I know that but something needs to be done about this.

This problem extends to more than character names, recently a new form of my guild Dermorian Lords has popped up and the guild goals are very similar if not identical to the ones my guild had. This guild was eventually disbanded after discussion for it being against the settings so mirroring this guild is probably not the best idea.

Would it not be possible to put all "used" character and guild names on a list were they couldn't be used again.

I know of this happening to many people, not just myself.

[defender43]

Would it not be possible to put all "used" character and guild names on a list were they couldn't be used again.

No. Absolutely not. Names are inevitably reused. Put them on a list, heck yes. But certainly not a permanent list. Otherwise there'd be no reasonable names left.

[Gharan]

There could be millions of possible meaningless names so your argument falls short.

[neko kyouran]

I'd like deleted names to be put on a list for lockout of say a month or so, and during that time the only person able to use that name would be the account that name was linked to before it was deleted. 

This way, the original user has time to get back thier name if they decide they would rather keep that name before it becomes free grabs, but eventually, if you delete a name, then I don't see why it can't become public use after a time frame. 

People going around using others old names to get stuff is perfectly fine to me at least.  It happens in real life, and when the fakes get caught they typically face the consequences of thier actions.  I don't see why the same could be done IG in an IC method.

If they are trying to impersonate another player though, then that should be reported to a GM for investigation.  IC impersonation fine: deal with it IC'ly, OOC bad: GM investigation time.

As for the guild thing, report to a gm.  If the guild shouldn't belong and disrupts RP, thy will take care of it.  GMs hve disbanded guilds in the past.

[Gharan]

I'd still say that even an IC impersonation is crossing the line. They could talk to anyone and say anything. The possibilities are endless.

The names generally haven't bothered me, people I speak to know I deleted so that's not a problem. Using my guild name even thought it was disbanded I found out of order though. I'd actually spent time bringing Vigel back to life (even though i had to re-name him Vigele) and had some RP for him that kept with settings. Now I cannot recreate this guild because the name is now taken. Not only the name is identical but the ambitions of the guild.

Should this be un-acceptable or just go down as un-original?

[bilbous]

This certainly argues against announcing departures/final character deaths. If you are afraid someone will take your identity do not delete your character, start a new account if you have no spots left and just do not log in with the dead character again.

[Raleigh]

This certainly argues against announcing departures/final character deaths. If you are afraid someone will take your identity do not delete your character, start a new account if you have no spots left and just do not log in with the dead character again.

Remember: The death realm will get larger soon^tm, opening possibilities of roleplaying for dead people, so think twice before actually deleting a character that died...

"I see dead people"   

[Caarrie]

As for the guild thing, report to a gm.  If the guild shouldn't belong and disrupts RP, thy will take care of it.  GMs hve disbanded guilds in the past.

Sorry Neko but no GM can disband a guild. It also looks like not even a dev can [unless i am looking in the wrong place].

[neko kyouran]

Hmm, thought for sure that it's been done before.  maybe the GM just highly suggested (showing a little muscle perhaps) to the leader of the guild to disband it.  Guess I stand corrected then.

Hmm, add on wish then:  GMs and devs need the power to disband guilds.  Why: see thread posts above.   

[zanzibar]

It's awful that people are out there pulling this crap.  It happened to me as well, only with a more vile purpose; someone used my forum named to make a character and then started harassing people.  The same person then used alternate spellings of my main character and did the same.  He even sexually harassed someone.

Fortunately, things worked out - I even talked with the girl who was victimized and she understands what happened now and a GM told me he knew who the guilty party was.  I don't know if anyone was punished or banned though, and it disgusts me that this kind of thing happened in the first place.  It's a bad sign if it's happening to more people than just myself.

[Nikodemus]

A name is not unique identificator. Yeah, you can't pick the same name, if it's there already, but as we see if it is deleted, there is no problem at all. In real there are loads of people with the same name and even surname.
People should not belive in everything they see. Unfortunately people are dump, or rather don't care to remember about it and this way if someone wan't to frame you, his job isn't that tought.

I believe we should have access to some ooc informations if really want to be sure who we are talking with.
People should be allowed to take names of deleted characters, because unlike some people think, at some point all the names which sound somewhat ok will end, unles you want to see names >14 characters. But then people harrass others, taking some deleted name.
I think facial look should be possible to be more unique. Marks, tatoos and stuff to make a face look original. And then, for two years, after a character was deleted, no one with the same face and name can create character.
We should have also an option to see someone else face from close in an easy way. I like an option in Fan art section when mouse moved on name in chat window made a small popup with the face.

[zanzibar]

If you can get scars and other marks as your character ages, then yes.  But if you can just set it when you make your character, it doesn't help to prevent identity theft.

In PS, if I see a character named Nikodemus, and then I see another character named Nikodemus the next day, I'm going to assume that they're the same character.  It's just how things work around here.

I think that once Planeshift becomes a bigger game with 1,000 people online at a time, things like this will become less of an issue.  Right now, because it's such a small community, melodrama and personal grudges are very common.  It won't be this way forever.

Please excuse my superfluous use of commas.

[Nikodemus]

In PS, if I see a character named Nikodemus, and then I see another character named Nikodemus the next day, I'm going to assume that they're the same character.  It's just how things work around here.

I believe this should change. Sure you can look at the name, but you shouldn't instantly assume what you think is the only option. What if there is that stuff with deletion involved? You can't be sure.
We should really look at the face. Of course noone does it now, because if you play in 3rd person viev, you would hardly see any details and the faces simply has not not enough detail currently.
I'm not even talking about getting scars. Making your face at char creation should do the job of people being somewhat unique. The whole thing is especially because of the need of use of names which has been deleted, but to avoid the problems with stealing the old identiti.

Yes, this is game and people want to look at names only, but it is also true that this game is really trying to be RP like with all the consequences.

This is a wishlist afterall. It is also true that devs has other priorities, so this idea won't go in game soon enough, so we are just chatting there.
Somewhat i think that no matter how complicated solution to the problem will be, it won't make it in game soon enough, for us to be satisfied ;P

[Vengeance]

I like the idea of 'preserving' names on a waiting period, as one of you suggested, so that if a name has been used for more than X hours, it isn't immediately fully deleted but instead goes on a reserved list for a few weeks.  This would give us "undo delete" capability, eventually (if the same person creates the same character again, he gets his old character back) as well as help with this impersonation problem.

I'll make this a prospect task and someday someone will get to it. :-)  If anyone reading this wants to take this on as a prospect task, please send me a PM here and we can discuss a design approach before you start.

Thanks for the suggestion.

- Venge

[Einnol]

@Venge:

Well, if this functionality is going to be designed and implemented, maybe it would be a good idea to make this feature also work in the event of character wipes.  This way it would also act as a sort of automatic name reservation system after a full wipe.