Why do I have to rename FOUR of my characters?

[Pum]

Just logged onto SW:TOR (admittedly after quite a long period of time), to see I have to rename four of my characters.

Why is this? Plus they're all on the same realm, so what is happening here?

[Arlee]

It's leftover from when they merged servers. Lots of people had to rename toons.

[Kelimbror]

what is happening here?

I'll quote you for the answer:

Just logged onto SW:TOR (admittedly after quite a long period of time)

In that time there were huge server merges. If you had logged on when they happened you could have kept your name. Not a great feeling, but the fairest solution imo.

[Aundas]

I was active at the time of the mergers and had to rename both of my 50s. I was pretty upset about that considering whomever has the lock on those names probably isn't playing the game anymore, I wish there was a way for me to get those names back.

[WarpedAcorn]

I was active at the time of the mergers and had to rename both of my 50s. I was pretty upset about that considering whomever has the lock on those names probably isn't playing the game anymore, I wish there was a way for me to get those names back.

I am a little annoyed at the number of names being taken up by people who no longer play, haven't played in awhile, and/or have no intention of coming back. I try to name all my characters uniquely without anything utterly dumb. I really wish they had some way to lock in a "temporary" Legacy name for players to identify themselves so that they could have similar names used. For instance, I really wanted to name a new character I made last weekend Richtor. While that name was in use, I technically would have been the only Richtor Vaynard on the server. That's one of the nice things about named in GW2, I got to issue a first and last name for my characters that allowed me to get the initial name I wanted.

Anyways, long story short...sucks you lost your names dude.

[Harpocrates]

If you had logged on when they happened you could have kept your name

not true. I lost many names the day it happened [i dont play anymore and this being one of the reasons]

[Pum]

Cheers for the replies guys, sucks that this was something that couldn't be avoided at all..

I'm contemplating resubscribing tbh after playing a few hours of it tonight (mainly because I really enjoy the PvP aspect.), but will play a bit more to make a final decision, and after I have a go at the Star Wars Galaxies Emu

Does anyone know roughly how many people are currently playing SW:TOR?

[Kelimbror]

not true. I lost many names the day it happened [i dont play anymore and this being one of the reasons]

Me too, because I didn't log on fast enough. Which is why I said if you logged on WHEN THEY HAPPENED (mergers) you would have kept your name. Whoever came on first got to keep their name. How else would you pick people to keep their names when no one had a choice?

It was the most fair solution.

[quras]

Me too, because I didn't log on fast enough. Which is why I said if you logged on WHEN THEY HAPPENED (mergers) you would have kept your name. Whoever came on first got to keep their name. How else would you pick people to keep their names when no one had a choice?

It was the most fair solution.

They also took into consideration if you had changed your name once (or twice) already when logging into the new server.

I know BW made someone else change their name cause I had already changed my name once before and they had not. Apparently I got dibs cause I was being moved from server to server.

It might not be entirely fair but at the end of the day, we both changed our names once each.

It was not always who logged in first.

[Kelimbror]

They also took into consideration if you had changed your name once (or twice) already when logging into the new server.

I know BW made someone else change their name cause I had already changed my name once before and they had not. Apparently I got dibs cause I was being moved from server to server.

It might not be entirely fair but at the end of the day, we both changed our names once each.

It was not always who logged in first.

An even better explanation of how it was more fair...but I don't recall any public announcement detailing what you have outlined, thoguh I wouldn't expect any differently from them.

[Aundas]

Me too, because I didn't log on fast enough. Which is why I said if you logged on WHEN THEY HAPPENED (mergers) you would have kept your name. Whoever came on first got to keep their name. How else would you pick people to keep their names when no one had a choice?

It was the most fair solution.

I was under the impression that the origanal players on the destination server all kept their names and only the migrating players had to change names in the event of a duplicate name. I didn't think it had anything to do with time of log-in, just if you were one of the incoming players you had to switch since that person was on that server first.

[Harpocrates]

Me too, because I didn't log on fast enough. Which is why I said if you logged on WHEN THEY HAPPENED (mergers) you would have kept your name. Whoever came on first got to keep their name. How else would you pick people to keep their names when no one had a choice?

It was the most fair solution.

i dont want to go into a rant but the fact that this had to happen in the first place was poor designing on biowares fault. We already had to race to get our names saved with early access only for it to be done all over again

[Stormdash]

I lost my favorite SWTOR character name on all but one server while I was unsubscribed, and what's worse is that, on my main server, while the character is a 50, it appears to be in total disuse from everything I can tell. I don't know if Bioware will do what Blizzard can do with regard to unlocking names, but I've thought about putting in a ticket to try.

I've been back playing it for a couple weeks. Other than that inconvenience, I think the game is a lot more fun than it was at launch.

[Aroa]

I was under the impression that the origanal players on the destination server all kept their names and only the migrating players had to change names in the event of a duplicate name. I didn't think it had anything to do with time of log-in, just if you were one of the incoming players you had to switch since that person was on that server first.

No, several people that where on a server with the same name as the new server also had to change names of characters. Some people on The Red Eclipse before the merger had to change names even though they were still on a server called The Red Eclipse after the merger. That is because they moved all characters to a totally new superserver but they called the new server the same name as an old server. That is why some people thought they would keep their name because they didn't have to move when in reality their chars were also moved. In my opinion it would've been better if they had renamed the new super servers to totally unique names.

From what I remember of the discussions back when it happened Bioware took into account lots of things when determining who gets to keep the name (when the char was created, activity, total playing time etc). I remember reading a dev post about it even though they never released the actual algorithm. I know people that created a new char on The Red Eclipse and tried to logon right after the merger but they couldn't keep those names on the new char just because it was a newly ccreated char and not an old one. So it wasn't just how fast you logon after the merger that determined if you keep your name or not.

[Arlee]

Me too, because I didn't log on fast enough. Which is why I said if you logged on WHEN THEY HAPPENED (mergers) you would have kept your name. Whoever came on first got to keep their name. How else would you pick people to keep their names when no one had a choice?

It was the most fair solution.

I think (technically) there have been three mergers. The first (huge one) was the only one where I think when you logged in mattered. For the others they used their super secret formula of some random mix of criteria to be completely fair to everyone to determine who kept what name.

I was under the impression that the origanal players on the destination server all kept their names and only the migrating players had to change names in the event of a duplicate name. I didn't think it had anything to do with time of log-in, just if you were one of the incoming players you had to switch since that person was on that server first.

Nah they said out rightly that wasn't the criteria they used because it wasn't fair to the people who had the bad luck to roll on a server that wasn't a destination server.

[Kelimbror]

I think (technically) there have been three mergers. The first (huge one) was the only one where I think when you logged in mattered. For the others they used their super secret formula of some random mix of criteria to be completely fair to everyone to determine who kept what name.

Yes, this sounds closer to what actually happened.

[WarpedAcorn]

I think (technically) there have been three mergers. The first (huge one) was the only one where I think when you logged in mattered. For the others they used their super secret formula of some random mix of criteria to be completely fair to everyone to determine who kept what name.

You keep your conspiracy theories in The Secret World where they belong! =p

[Vankrys]

i don't see an easy solution to that.

You have to have unique character name with the current game architecture. But since there were server merger a while back, it's a high probability that 2 character may end up with the same name on the same server, one would have to rename.

Server merger were necessary at the time, the game is more lively now. this move is bound to make unhappy people loosing their name, but globally, i think the vast majority of player are satisfied with the merger, rather than playing on ghost server.

Hope you will find a new name and grow to like it.

[Xargoth6634]

Fair, huh? Fair that I have to rename my characters that I made on a once high pop server because Bioware made way too many servers when the game came up, and I didn't immediately resub to secure those names when the forced transfers happened? Yeah, that makes sense. One of the main reasons I'd never consider coming back.

[Kelimbror]

Fair, huh? Fair that I have to rename my characters that I made on a once high pop server because Bioware made way too many servers when the game came up, and I didn't immediately resub to secure those names when the forced transfers happened? Yeah, that makes sense. One of the main reasons I'd never consider coming back.

There are plenty of reasons to not go back, but having to change your name when servers merged is the most contrived and ridiculous one I've ever heard. I was upset by having to change many character names, but I realize that it's pretty standard for server merges.

Also, while the initial situation wasn't handled perfectly, I'm not going to hold a company's actions to try and make the game playable and in a better state as some sort of crime against me individually. It's just silly. They took too long to offer the transfers and then too long to finally merge servers. If you want to complain about something, pick that. Renaming characters is standard. You can't have people running around with the same name.