I’m posting again this idea here to have a feeling about the community reading the official forums, as each year.
The game has changed significantly over the last 2 years-ish.
Lots of ‘tabooed’ lines / subjects has been crossed / discussed, like Skill Injectors, Skill queue, Clones mecanics, Sov mecanics, Capitals jump range and frequency, T3C revamp, Structures, and so on.
I think it’s time to cross that Character name change taboo.
Since a last patch, you can’t have someone in watchlist if himself don’t have you in his own watchlist.
Something that made me think again about that character name change cause i concidered this (watchlist thing) a barrier for players to concider this feature.
And with granulared PLEX, we can more easily calibrate the certificate price.
My “idea” :
Make a Pilot’s Service just like [Multiple Pilot Training Certificate] or [Pilot’s Body Resculpt Certificate] to let player change the name of a character. [Name Change Certificate], buyable by PLEX or ISK in game.
Make it usable only once lifetime. Or every year, 6 months or 3 months, whatever, to avoid abusive use of that (depends on CCP wishes).
Character will still appear on watchlist even after a name change.
Standing won’t reset once name has changed.
Players will get a notification whenever one of his contacts change his name.
Make a [Name History] which will list all the names the character had in his game life just like the [Employment History] is listing all the corporations the character had in his game life.
Plus, name changes history must be exposed via the XML API for the benefit of alliances and corporations doing background checks.
Optional implementation with this feature :
Make it usable only to Characters with at least 50m Skill Points ? 80m SP ?
Make it usable only to Characters that are at least 5 years old (based on Date of Birth (creation date))
Make an option while searching a character name in [People & Places] to display result by actual name or concidering name history. Let’s say you want to search for a character named “John Doe”, the results will display the actual player named “John Doe” AND the other player now named “Rob Thing” formerly known as “John Doe” from 2007/12/05 to 2016/04/02.
Advantages :
More money to CCP !
No character disapearing from contact.
Can still find someone with name ‘A’ if he change to ‘B’.
I would argue that your name is more important than either of these by a longshot.
Your name and reputation are who you are in EVE. They determine who trusts you, who hates you, and what social group your choices have embedded you within.
Your appearance? Totally irrelevant, no one really cares about it. Your skills? Replaceable, anyone can train into anything given a few months of time. Your reputation, who is willing to fly with you, and who wants you dead? Everything, totally unreplicatable, requires potentially years of social activity and the acceptance of other players (or churning their ire) to obtain. You shouldn’t be able to discard a name simply because it has become problematic or recognizable.
So you mean that despite Skill Injectors and, like you said “a few months of time”, people should not rename their character, but only should they create a new one ?
Skills were never unrepeatable even before skill injectors. All it took was raw time to get anyone into any ship.
Social interaction with other human beings is and always has been a trickier beast. Who gets ticked off when they see your name in local and who is willing to make a 50 jump trip to save your ass is a product of unrepeatable human interactions that will always be different for each individual. Not everyone, even given an indefinite period of time, will be able to acquire the exact same social connections that a given name has- Not every name will accrue the same kinds and degrees of trust (or lack thereof).
Changing the game so that reputations can be cast off for the right fee would frankly ruin a lot of what drew me here in the first place. A huge reason I love the concept of EVE is that my actions have consequence! What I do as the player named Dorvius directly impacts where I can go and what I can accomplish, more than my raw skillpoints ever can!
The real question is why you so badly want name change to be in the game, that you’re willing to construct a whole essay filled with fake logic about it.
It’s not for the betterment of the game or its players, you want it for yourself.
@Dorvius
Ok, so now you’re saying that in 2017, with voice communication, and the fact that in Eve it is indeed, very hard to create new clones and skill them up (noticed the iorony here, right ? right ?), people should not be able to change their character names ?
I am saying that, yes. What point are you trying to make? You have presented nothing in support of your position; I have argued mine point by point. Nothing in any of your posts is even remotely supportive or persuasive in defense of your original argument. You toss out phrases without context or without defining any way in which they prop up the concept of name changes. Voice chat? What does that have to do with anything? And what do you mean ‘very hard to create new clones’? The act of actually making a character is not what is under discussion- It is the reputation of that character itself that is being debated, vis a vis the Name.
I’ve said what I came to say here. So keep on acting flippant with that “okay. i see.” nonsense and see if it actually persuades anyone that this idea is anything more than rubbish.
The real question is : why you so badly want name change not to be in the game, that you’re not willing to construct a whole eassay, or at least a much more elaborate response than “No”. ?
The point i’m trying to make, is that all your points you just exposed are irrelevant.
No. Because : Reputation matter.
At which my answer is : reputation is irrelevant, as long as people can create new fresh clones easily in a matter of days or months.
At which i’m also answering : Reputation is irrelevant, as long as in such a social game as Eve Online, communication with voice chat like TeamSpeak or Mumble, or Discord is a “norm”, then a voice can easily be recognised.
At which my suggested feature comming along this idea are supposed to avoid any “surprise gank”, if only standings are set as they should be.
Why should i expose a reason at all ?
Have you ever considered a second that may be, i’m willing this feature not for my only selfish self ?
Or you’re desperatly stuck in your bias about my person ?
The name itself is also meaningless. People look at your Corp history and the alliance history from there. It is those associations which also support the identity of the character.
So if the history of the name never changes, like changing from one corp to another corp never erases your corporate history, then changing the name will not matter as well. It is the player behind it.
Basically you have the name from character creation and then AKA (Also Known As) which can be added.
The main issue is maintaining continuity of the character so that if you look at their base identity outside of any alias.
How are they irrelevant? Provide your argument as to why any of my points should be discarded from the discussion. I provided my reasons as to why I feel the points I brought up have merit, you need to be prepared to do the same.