Feedback:User/Clawfford/Free Up Character Names from "Abandoned" Accounts
Free Up Character Names from "Abandoned" Accounts
| |
|---|---|
| User | Clawfford |
| Categories | Mechanics |
There are probably MILLIONS of character names being reserved on the Guild Wars servers for accounts that have been abandoned. Aside from the inconvenience of finding available names for new characters, this probably also represents a respectable waste of storage space on the servers. The Terms of Service should be amended so that a player agrees that his characters can be wiped from the servers after his account has been declared "Abandoned".
People may abandon an account for any number of reasons. Maybe they played the game a little and decided they didn't care for it. Maybe they played it 24 hours a day until they got bored of it and quit. Maybe their computer was stolen or destroyed. In each of these cases, Guild Wars may not even be installed on computers anymore. Whatever the reason, those character names are forever lost to loyal, regular players under current policy. This means they are also lost for Guild Wars 2, since existing Guild Wars names are being saved for players who buy GW2.
In my particular instance, I wanted to name a character after my newborn niece, but someone already had the name. So I put them on my "Friends" list so that I could talk to the player when I saw them online, in hopes of acquiring the name from them. Two years have elapsed, and I have never seen them in the game. I am online a lot, and at all times of the day, so it is not likely a time zone issue. They have attended no Festivals. It is obviously an abandoned account, so the name I want is LOST to me forever, and I can't even hope to get it for Guild Wars 2.
Guild Wars can determine what constitutes an "Abandoned" account. But I would think 2 years absence is a pretty good indicator. They can shoot an e-mail to the owner of the account in question, and politely inform them that their characters are due to be erased from the servers unless they log in sometime soon. This does NOT mean that they won't be able to play Guild Wars again if they want. They can always reinstall and start a new account, but any existing characters will be wiped out and they will have to start over unless they declare (through e-mail or by logging in) an intention to keep their old account. (Guild Wars could even play "hardball" if they wanted, and just automatically "clean house" of any accounts unused for a specified length of time without warning.)
This is obviously an ACCOUNT BASED suggestion. I am not advocating removal of individual characters that have not been played in awhile from otherwise active accounts. At the very least, if this suggestion sounds too radical or unfair to be adopted, I would still like to see "abandoned" Guild Wars character names freed up for use in Guild Wars 2.
