Getting out of names (for pets too) - release old unused accounts?

[LigH]

Recently I was finally able (after 3 weekends, where one got interrupted by the update) to renew Winch access and obtain a mount.  

Then I tried to give him a name ...   Already used.     Already used.   Already used.  


I wonder how many accounts are still active at all. Out of the currently 475528 accounts registered. Where up to 4 chars per account take a unique name. Especially now due to the creation of mule accounts to tidy up the guild houses - before the item storage was available.

(Is there any developer able to query the database for the number of only those accounts which were used during the last 1 / 2 years, in comparison to all?)


Would it be useful to release accounts not used for a sufficient amount of time?


Of course it is no simple question. How long is "sufficient" as minimum - 2 years, 3 years, 5 years? Are the players away due to a loss of itnerest or due to technical issues? Does their email address still work? Do they still remember their passwords?

But please note that a randomized name is not available for pets, at least not for the user (they would need to ask a GM to suggest random names until one sounds convenient and is also available...).

[weltall]

http://www.rinkworks.com/namegen/
as for the char removal it will be thought. personally i found no used names when i named mine and i would have expected them to be already taken eheh.

[bilbous]

I would suggest that some of the naming restrictions be relaxed for pets, such as the noun / verb proscription. I would go further to suggest that pet names need not be unique as they could be programmatically tied to the character owner. It does not really matter what the label says, the description could always explicitly state the ownership, i.e. "bilbous's pet rivnak 'Smelly Hoofer'." Surely the pet does not need its own database entry separate from its owner but rather could be listed as a field in the character's db entry. Perhaps that would require a database refactoring, I do not know.

The fact that pet names are ephemeral and can be changed on a player whim makes them unsuited for a uniqueness test. Does the name currently get added to the used list for all time? If so then it will get a lot harder quicker to come up with character names.

[LigH]

Well, it took me a while because I was looking especially for short names (about a dozen tries, all rejected as "not unique"). But now I found one, and this turned out to be a funny incident...

Short names and names with some special meaning may get used quickly. Slightly longer and rather random names will be available for longer, of course...

[weltall]

it had a meaning. anyway duplicate names are a problem so no better to avoid them even if one is of a player and the other of the rivnak or drifter of a player. it makes the work difficult for gm to use the in game tools as they get obliged to refer them with the internal engine numbers (pid) in place of using the name same goes when using the webconsole etc

[bilbous]

It is kind of too bad that the pet order is not static, i.e. 0 is standard pet, 1 is rivnak and 2 is drifter otherwise any given characters pet could be referred to as charname:x  in the tools so to change bilbous' drifter name you could input bilbous:2. This would work even if pet names did not have to be unique. Of course the tools would need to be tweaked because they do not function that way now.

One thing I am wondering is if anyone has thought of implementing a naming freeze for pets. This would allow a gm to lock the names of a characters pets for players that abuse the name change function by repeatedly making names that contravene the rules. Players already cannot change their character names without creating a new character.

[LigH]

bilbous: The pet ordering can be implemented by adding an ORDER clause to the SQL query listing all pets per character. Just needs to be done.

I even wonder if summoning the pet by name is possible, I thought that I have seen this once in the description (could be months/years ago). Will try it.
__

No... although the Help text lists "/pet [petname,] summon", using the firstname of the pet works like using 0, always the same pet gets summoned. And trying the double-quoted whole petname (/pet "Firstname Lastname", summon) returns the syntax error message.

Bug #1378 now contains current details about it.

[-stf-]

IMO pet names could be duplicates of the character names as long as the database uses different column for character names and pet names.
About old accounts, I would suggest 2 years for deleting the unused accounts and announce it in the forum and on the main page at least 3 months before applying. I'd suggest to do it monthly and run the process manually to be sure that server date is correct to avoid unwanted deletion of all characters while the date will be incorrect, or at least check ntpd status when the automatic function is used. If people want to keep the accounts alive and they will know about it, then they can always login before their account is deleted and logout immediately after they see the character selection screen, which updates their login status. It can be solved also by developing separate login status update program that just logins to update the status and log outs afterwards when they have issues with the client and don't want to lose their characters. As the code is present in the client, it should not be so hard to make it separate program, that does just this and doesn't even need to have GUI, console application can do it safer than GUI as it should run even on problematic hardware.

[weltall]

i disagree i just saw someone sue someone else because he named their pigs like the one who sued

[Roled]

Returning to the question of how to get out of an old and unused account- here's my perhaps unique? problem. I turned a friend on to PS about 2 years ago, and my friend/houseguest played ps on my laptop with a character name that was since abandoned. My pal has no recollection of the account password {must've been the beer!} and has now come and gone from PS. But there the dead klyros sits on my laptop on my account. How can I get rid of that character? Thanks for any help! 

Roled Rolak
around for the long haul

Zythra Mackryk- looking for assisted suicide!

PS Congratulations LigH on your rivnak!   I look forward to a ride in the countryside and a nice long Knowledge Seekers talk!

[bilbous]

If he is on your account then it is your password needed to delete him. If it is not then it shouldn't even be visible to you.

[weltall]

you can request a new pass from the registration page

[-stf-]

you can request a new pass from the registration page

The problem can be when people deleted their email account and the message is sent to non existed mailbox. What can people do in that case?
(It's not my problem, but I know many people who lost their email accounts i.e. while they changed their ISP)