Concerning Character Names

[Quarks]

The new shard and the incoming F2P accounts brought the issue back to the front of my mind.
Here's my thoughts:

Currently whenever you pick a name this name is yours on this shard and will stay so for all eternity unless you delete the character and are not fast enough to re-pick the name.
There's a finite number of useful names and people are already hitting a wall of frustration unless they refer to fantasy names of their own (which I personally do most of the time).
Now that we will have free to play and also accounts with up to 30 characters per server I think it's time to rethink the mechanism for this.
What do we do if a F2P decides to log in, make names and then never is seen again?
What do we do with old player accounts who have virtual treasures on their names lists but the players don't consider ever coming back?

I suggest that names should stay on the characters of all accounts who are either

Paid up (in the case of VIPs)
or have recent account activity on this server (in the case of F2P)


That means that a VIP can keep their names as long as they pay their subscription whether they log in or not.
F2P people have to actually play the server they have a character on in order to keep their names. (It would be possible to make this more restrictive in that they'd actually have to play the character, but I think that's overdoing it)

As soon as a VIP account becomes inactive for a specific period of time (say 3 months), their names automatically turn into alterations of the originals like we had at shard merge. (For example John would turn into John-inactive)
Once they reactivate their accounts they get a name-change token for their characters. If noone claimed their names in the meantime they can choose these again, otherwise they have to pick something else.

For F2P I would use a shorter timer than for VIPs after which the same happens.

Most likely it would be useful to add a holiday feature, but to me that's not very high on the priority list. Although this might even bring some store revenue from F2P's, I don't know...

Many players who currently have inactive accounts will be less than thrilled by the idea, I know. But then... you chose not to pay for the account anymore, why should others who do be made to suffer for that choice?

[Goldeneye]

This is a very good idea! Even before the massive surge of players from F2P, you rarely get your first, second, or third name choice. If you really want a specific name, you have to have had a character from a long time ago saving the name. I imagine there are thousand and thousands of un-usable names that will never see the light of day again. With F2P coming, expect to see names like "Legolaasssssscx" or "Ghimmliiiey"

[Memnir]

Turbine has a pretty inflexible policy of not stripping accounts of names and/or characters, so I'd say that this is unlikely to happen.

And as far as the "finite number of useful names" you mention - I have to politely but firmly refute that. Names are only limited by one's creativity and imagination... and perhaps even more by their vocabulary. After almost three years of the game being live, and a multi-server merge that happened - I needed a name for my new Paladin. Gospel was my first choice, and it was still open despite the time and the merge. Even later on than that - Misdemeanor was still available for a new Rogue.

If you are having issues with a character name - perhaps try a thesaurus (http://thesaurus.reference.com/) instead of just wailing that all the good names are gone. You'll be surprised...

[Quarks]

Turbine has a pretty inflexible policy of not stripping accounts of names and/or characters, so I'd say that this is unlikely to happen.

And as far as the "finite number of useful names" you mention - I have to politely but firmly refute that. Names are only limited by one's creativity and imagination... and perhaps even more by their vocabulary. After almost three years of the game being live, and a multi-server merge that happened - I needed a name for my new Paladin. Gospel was my first choice, and it was still open despite the time and the merge. Even later on than that - Misdemeanor was still available for a new Rogue.

If you are having issues with a character name - perhaps try a thesaurus (http://thesaurus.reference.com/) instead of just wailing that all the good names are gone. You'll be surprised...

I know they have this policy of not stripping accounts of characters. There has been a precedent, though, when names did not remain the same, namely the server merge.
Without their policy I wouldn't have to suggest a change in policies now, would I? :rolleyes:

Finite is the opposite of infinite. 12 letters max per name, 26 letters in the alphabet (27 if you count the 'none' you have for the last 8 letters in a 4-letter name)
is a lot, especially if you accept yyyyyyyyyyas to be a name. But it's still finite.

As you can read in my original post I use my own names for the most part, anyway. So I have no reason to wail, as you describe my post for some reason I can't figure out.
I still think there's no reason for a F2P who has logged on once to hog a name for all eternity, and neither is there for a one-time subscriber who has been gone for 3 years.

[Memnir]

I still think there's no reason for a F2P who has logged on once to hog a name for all eternity, and neither is there for a one-time subscriber who has been gone for 3 years.Simple - Turbine wants them to come back... and taking away their names, regardless of elapsed time, is a guarantee they won't.

But hey, everyone needs a windmill to tilt at - myself included. If you want to tilt at this one, have fun with it. :)

[mashedpotato82]

maybe the last names should carry weight as well. u could have two people named john but diff last names. might be odd to log on one day and find 100 john's in the market place but i think thats an extreme example.

edit: and if u do have more than one of a name in your group call them by last name, easy. (at least it seemed to work in the real world)
there are simply too many people to have single names.

[Lirial]

doubt it would happen, pick a new name if the one you want is taken or try a diff server

[Shadalarion]

I like to see names to be account based, at present cannot use same name on one server on another server since it has been taken by another player. Also it would be helpful to have a name generator of some sort, it gets fustrating to have to wait up to 90 minutes trying to find a name that does not violate the TOS and not get a "this name is already taken" error message.

[Arlith]

Shard? *** did that come from? When did we start calling servers shards?

[TreknaQudane]

shard? *** Did That Come From? When Did We Start Calling Servers Shards?

Uo

[Quarks]

Yeah, sorry, 10 years of UO sneaking up on me, there.

Server is what I mean, of course.

[Anneliese]

Finite is the opposite of infinite. 12 letters max per name, 26 letters in the alphabet (27 if you count the 'none' you have for the last 8 letters in a 4-letter name)
is a lot, especially if you accept yyyyyyyyyyas to be a name. But it's still finite.


With a rough guess, that means there are more than 1 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 names still available.

[Quarks]

With a rough guess, that means there are more than 1 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 names still available.

Assuming you can have characters with 1 letter names, then there's a total of
144 535 574 730 443 598 combinations, which is about 7 trillion times less than the number you pulled from a secret place of your own.
That's still a lot, no doubt. It's not the point, though.
If you care to read what I wrote I don't complain about having no names to choose from. I'm fine with names, so far I found good names for all my characters, and I'm confident I will keep doing so.

I just don't see why someone who has been inactive for years, or worse, someone who never paid Turbine a penny and was only online for one day before disappearing into nothingness, should block a perfectly good name for all eternity.

[Soulken]

Names should never be lost except maybe in a server merge, and I wish more names would be banned, people are lucky I am not in charge, any name that didtn fit the world I would delete the character and tell them to start again.

[Samadhi]

Something needs to be done - this idea has as much merit as any other I've seen.


<victim of losing one of his names in the time it took to reroll>

[Therigar]

The ANSWER continues to be this:

Make the key field a concatonation of first name plus last name plus player account.

Because player account is always unique this allows people to have the same first and last names as others. If it is really necessary to display a difference to avoid confusion then add a new, unique, field for character origin or attribute.

Thus we have: John Doe the Ugly, John Doe the Handsome, John Doe of Gootchy Hallow, John Doe of Rio Bravo, etc. (Apologies to John Does everywhere. :D)

The issue with such a change is that it means adding an additional data field for the origin/attribute information (which would be unique to prevent additional duplication but which will provide much fewer opportunities for conflict in names). It also means increasing the size of the key field in some of the databases (assuming that there are multiple databases that need to be accessed*) or recoding to allow the programs to use concatonated information.

[Quarks]

<victim of losing one of his names in the time it took to reroll>

That's actually another thing that needs to happen!
As much as I am in favour of nixing an inactive account's right to a name, I think active accounts should have their rights strengthened.

Meaning, every time a character gets deleted, there should be a short time, like one hour or so, during which time only the orginal holder of the name can create a new character with it. That way name-ninja'ing during rerolling gets avoided.
And this should work for F2P as well as VIP.

[Waffle_Stomper]

I don't like this idea. Sometimes real life happens and people just can't come back to the game. It's not always out of a lack of interest. What would you tell someone who had to leave the game for an extended period of time due to military service and they came back to their names being gone?

[Quarks]

Taking the example above of a 3 month period (for all I care this could be extended or there could be an option to apply for a long-term break), I would suggest reactivating your account for a month every 3 months to avoid this.

[Craap]

Agreed.. but I think that the time period that people need to be inactive for needs to be significantly higher. A lot of vips have been known to take breaks either for work (especially military guys who I would hate to see lose their accounts while on tour), or between mods if the content is too slow in coming, the birth of a baby, etc.

I think it could also be based on whether they have ever been vip, 1 1/2 years for vip and 9 months for someone who has only ever been f2p. You at least free up names for people that ARE playing and ARE paying, which adds to the current paying customers enjoyment.

I also think that Turbines reluctance to delete old accounts and names came from the knowledge of them working towards a f2p business model, and the attractiveness of luring in old players by providing their characters and names still there, has already suceeded or failed to lure them back or not. In other words, those who would most likely returned have, and the others who probably won't return haven't. Turbine should look at some implementation for name renewal like this.

In addition, if the dash name that is added after their name when/if they come back is 'nicer', something along the lines of xxxx-returning or xxxx-renewed or xxxx-heywelcomebackgreattoseeyaagain .. it might be a little less like a slap in the face and more like a welcome back than xxxx-inactive.

[panekiller]

/NOT SIGNED....my darling wife played for 6 months to cap...at the time 16....and has decided to take a break...that was in september....her character names are hers and hers alone....

[Lorien_the_First_One]

Something needs to be done - this idea has as much merit as any other I've seen.


<victim of losing one of his names in the time it took to reroll>

Not an issue anymore...GO TR :p

[Quarks]

/NOT SIGNED....my darling wife played for 6 months to cap...at the time 16....and has decided to take a break...that was in september....her character names are hers and hers alone....

Why, though?
Do you think that names become intellectual property? Did she invent names and had them patented? I don't see why she should be able to hold on to the names if she's unwilling to maintain an account.

[Dungnmaster001]

Not signed. I've left games in the past with no intention of ever going back to them, then going back anyway up to 3 years later. People become attached to their names and it is never a good idea to alienate a potential paying customer because the name he/she held is no longer theirs.

[Caustic]

I feel that First name and last name should be what is used. You could easy have all same first name as long as the last name was different. like Sally Jones, Sally Swiftleaf, Sally Whatever. Kinda like real life. To use only the first name in a character is down right silly. But thats just me.

[Dungnmaster001]

Not an issue anymore...GO TR :p Only applies if the character is level 20.

[Soulken]

I feel that First name and last name should be what is used. You could easy have all same first name as long as the last name was different. like Sally Jones, Sally Swiftleaf, Sally Whatever. Kinda like real life. To use only the first name in a character is down right silly. But thats just me.

Makes sending emails and tells much harder to have to use both names.

[Dungnmaster001]

I feel that First name and last name should be what is used. You could easy have all same first name as long as the last name was different. like Sally Jones, Sally Swiftleaf, Sally Whatever. Kinda like real life. To use only the first name in a character is down right silly. But thats just me.

This would have worked if it had been built into the game from the start (i.e. what City of Heroes/Villains did) but it'd be next to impossible to implement now due to the way the systems are set up. Chat and Mail for example only displays the first name, so when they type into general chat for example it would get confusing. Especially if 2 sally's started arguing. it'd look like one person arguing with themselves heh.

[Therigar]

Makes sending emails and tells much harder to have to use both names.

I think this is the real reason that changes are not made. People would have to learn to type more than one word at a time. That has to be debilitating.

[foxx]

here we go again.

[Gaurelin]

Names should never be lost except maybe in a server merge, and I wish more names would be banned, people are lucky I am not in charge, any name that didtn fit the world I would delete the character and tell them to start again.

Oh, ye gods, yes!
This is one of my major pet peeves. There is nothing that drive me to distraction like seeing a char named 'BigDum Fighter' or sumesuch wandering about... and the list seems to be endless... I just do not understand that mindset at all.

[Flasharte]

i wish last names showed up on the who list, and perhaps as an option in the chat box, and on the party list (where the health and sp bars are). All my toons have the same last name and i'd prefer if, as planned when i decided to do it, it helped identify me as a player. I have two accounts one with 14 and the other with 10 (severe Altism sufferer) so its likely that folks i play with don't know who i am even though we have grouped together often. Is that egotisitical?

on a more relevant note, i would support the idea of inactive (several months) F2P names coming back into availability but not for VIPs. If you continue to pay you should maintain rights to the name.

[donutfromouterspace]

I've had no problems getting the first choice names I wanted, except for my barbarian who I wanted to name 'Sirocco' but couldn't because that name is taken not by a player, but a by a unique item.

Names should never be lost except maybe in a server merge, and I wish more names would be banned, people are lucky I am not in charge, any name that didtn fit the world I would delete the character and tell them to start again.My names aren't exactly Authentic Fantasy Gibberish, but neither are they what passes for 'clever' among smirky thirteen year olds. I wonder if they'd pass muster.

[Lorien_the_First_One]

Only applies if the character is level 20.

true...

[Lorien_the_First_One]

This would have worked if it had been built into the game from the start (i.e. what City of Heroes/Villains did) but it'd be next to impossible to implement now due to the way the systems are set up. Chat and Mail for example only displays the first name, so when they type into general chat for example it would get confusing. Especially if 2 sally's started arguing. it'd look like one person arguing with themselves heh.

its more than display, its how things are parsed, major rewrite probably.

[KillEveryone]

I don't care for the deletion of names. If someone has to take some time out for whatever reason - car accident and recuperating and might not have motor function for quite a while - that would not be fair.

If you could talk to the person that has a particular name you want and work out a deal, it would be nice to be able to find that person. Not everyone posts their characters on their MyDDO.

There have been several names that I really want but I don't have. I wanted Creative to be on my wiz and Robotchicken to be on my WF barb in Thelanis but those are taken. I had to come up with something else.

I do think that the name should take into account the surname.

I like the idea of having your account identifier on your name with your first and surname but displaying it would be too much clutter.

A possiblity could be to require a surname choice that always identifies your characters. You could choose to display it or not by just clicking something in game options. Of course if your party is full of Johns, it could be confusing....

Leader - "Hey everyone John the barb is going to go up and aggro the critter and bring it back here so we don't wake the other critters"
Party - "Ummmm...which John?"
Leader - "The barb"
The 2 barbs name John - "Still need some clarification."

or.....

John the Rogue "Trap John"
Party full of Johns "Which John?"

A possibility to fix the above would be to use the first letter of your surname but if more than one has the same surname letter you'll have to go to the second letter and so on.

I always use Anarchy as my surname. I have tried to use a first name but it doesn't go because someone has it even when I put Anarchy in my surname. That just perplexes me a bit but I understand that the surname doesn't really mean much for identification.

Since the surname doesn't register as anything, someone could run around with Anarchy as a surname and someone that knows that all my surnames are Anarchy may think that it was me on one of my alts that may not yet be listed on their friends list.

I also think that the name should allow for a few more letters but I think it is set at what it is because of the length of the health/sp bars where the name appears when your in group. I am fairly creative when comming up with names but I have been a letter too short a couple of times. Nannywarbuck should actually have an s at the end since it is supposed to be somewhat of a play on Daddy Warbucks. I wanted Divinerosie on my cleric but had to settle for Divinerose. Not much difference but still. A few more letter spaces allow for a bit more creativity.

I would also like to see more capitalization in the first name. I would have like to have the W and B capitalized in Nanny's name since it does highlight what she is supposed to be. Nanny is the buffer and healer in a pinch, war refers to warchanter and buck refers to the haggle, but not everyone does this sort of thing with their names. I often try to make the name reflect what their role is, kind of a mini game of mine. :) In the case of the WF I was going to find a bunch of feather fall clickies and everytime I charge into battle I was going to hit the clikie for the poof of feathers, kind of a theme thing :D and Creative Anarchy is one of my favorite names for my wizards.

[Quarks]

on a more relevant note, i would support the idea of inactive (several months) F2P names coming back into availability but not for VIPs. If you continue to pay you should maintain rights to the name.

That's why I said for ex-VIPs, not for current VIPs. Once you stop paying you're no longer a VIP. Give some leeway, time-wise, and then free the names.

[Kistilan]

I'm not really crazy about this idea. It would be exceedingly longer to continue typing to players such as /tell Kistilan le Noir or /tell Unfettered Soul of the Last War (2 of my names). Adding an "Account" Title is also less-than-classy (Someone out there has xSquirrelF****Rx as their account name, I'm pretty sure of it) and additional type required to differentiate a /tell to /tell Unfettered Soul of the Last War (Kistilan) as an example of the required text to send one darn tell.

The ONLY purging that even remotely makes sense are pre-launch early-bird accounts that never were renewed after the initial 10ish days of free play in Feb-March 2006. Those accounts would make sense to be purged if there has been 0 activity since that time period. Those people, if they are coming back, may not even remember their account/pass and have not shown the motivation or initiative to come back since the launch. Now that the relaunch has been heathily done, a purging of those names would likely make sense sometime in 2010.

[Memnir]

Wow, this post sure came back from the dead in a big way.
I still stand by the reasons I stated two months ago for why I don't think this idea will fly. With the added reasons that I don't think Turbine will take the time to overhaul the way names work to include last names, account names, what have you. In terms of gains made vs. effort needed - this would be a poor use of Dev time. It's not broken, just inconvenient. Yes, it sucks to have a name taken, lost, or be unavailable... but sometimes things in life suck. But, that does not mean that Turbine needs to change everything about how they handle names in order to alleviate that suckage.


http://i744.photobucket.com/albums/xx86/EnPsyane01/2cents-1.jpg
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[Alexandryte]

/Not signed

I dislike the idea of someone coming along after me and grabbing my characters name forcing ME to think of a new variation. Its much harder for established characters (aka characters already existing on that server) to get a new name and re-identify themselves than it is for someone new to create a new name or variant thereof.

After all most people will say thing phonetically, shortened (often to 3-6 letters) or address them by real name/mains name (if known). If you are rerolling a character, I have very little pity. Maybe the system has locked the name due to it being in recent use, or maybe your "original" name wasn't as "original" as you thought if someone else could come up with the same spelling at the same time you released it back into the naming pool. Personally Ive yet to have any naming problems on any of the MMO's Ive played, save one incident in WoW that was my fault (pushing a character to a new realm when i had a same name character there to scout things out). The "i" in my forum name became a "y".

Do you honestly believe its the F2P people nabbing up all your "good names"? If i had a dime for every time Ive seen some naming that was overly redundant, using leetspeak, or a copy of some other IP with a variation on the name, I would be a very rich man.



Have to love solutions that would not affect the original pitch person.


Another way to put it is: You don't kick existing customers out of a restaurant if they are there to eat if new ones come in and want that particular table to eat at. Why should the naming policy be different from first come first serve?

[Amaile]

I also don't think this is a good idea. I've left games before for an extended length of time and have come back. One of those games I put waaaaay too much of my time into. :P If I came back and my character had to rename, I'd be miffed. I put time and effort into that character and it is mine.

Also, seriously, some of us f2p'ers actually do pay for some content. For me it just works better to buy as I need rather than pay $15 a month x2 (me and the hubby). I still put time and money into the game.

I do think though that the last name thing is a good idea. I do understand that it would take longer to type. However, there are ways around it. Back in my old mud/talker days, you could just type part of a person's name. You only had to type enough to make it unique. So, if there was say, "Amaile O'Byrne" and "Amaile the magnificent", you'd only have to type /tell amaile o. Seriously. That's not that bad.

I'd love to see that so maybe there won't be so many xdrizzzzzztxxx's around... Oh wait.. nevermind, there probably still would be. ;) (And yeah, I'm another one who would nuke stupid names with abandon. heh.)

Yeah, it stinks when your name is taken. Quite a few of mine were. But it is life. Try a different spelling or name. You'll come up with something.

Either way, I'm doubting it is high on the dev's list of things. And personally, that's not such a bad thing. I'd rather see content. :D

[Alexandryte]

However a global name tied to account to distinguish, I would not mind. However, it may be a bit too late in the game to implement such and still maintain account security.

[Lirial]

take away a players name on a toon because theyre inactive for three months then they come back and find out only to get ****ed off and unsub completely. genius idea :rolleyes:

[UltraMonk2]

If there is any character deletion to free up names then I think only the following should apply:

1) It is an account that has never spent any real world money on the game. This means VIP and Premium accounts are not affected.

2) They have not logged into their account for at least 3 months.

$6.25 for the 400 point pack ain't that much, and I think would be a price F2Pers would be willing to pay to keep their names.

[Wraithkin]

I'm going to bump every one of these threads. I'd like to be able to change my last name. Please. Or at least delete it. I screwed up at character creation and didn't realize it until level 14 or so. I plan on keeping my character since I've already TR'ed him once. I just want to either change or delete my surname.

[Jay203]

just make it so the surname would add to the uniqueness of character name
so there can be multiple people with the primary name of Steele as long as their surnames are different
but then we'll have to change it so the displayed names show the WHOLE namechain =\

[Ashiel_Dragmire]

Turbine has everyone's e-mail address right? Why not just send an e-mail after an account's been inactive for 3+ months asking if it is alright with the former player for their character's names to be recycled? That seems like it could make sense (provided that Turbine does in fact have everyone's e-mail. I know I get the DDO Store/Event **** twice a month).

[Jerevon]

Turbine has a pretty inflexible policy of not stripping accounts of names and/or characters, so I'd say that this is unlikely to happen.

And as far as the "finite number of useful names" you mention - I have to politely but firmly refute that. Names are only limited by one's creativity and imagination... and perhaps even more by their vocabulary. After almost three years of the game being live, and a multi-server merge that happened - I needed a name for my new Paladin. Gospel was my first choice, and it was still open despite the time and the merge. Even later on than that - Misdemeanor was still available for a new Rogue.

If you are having issues with a character name - perhaps try a thesaurus (http://thesaurus.reference.com/) instead of just wailing that all the good names are gone. You'll be surprised...

This is it right here. The topic has come up before and I hope things don't change. It doesn't make a good impression on a returning player to show them that they lost their character's name just for taking a break. It probably wouldn't be good for customer retention either.

[edit]

+1

[Kindoki]

Anything that is static is decaying. People should expect that they lose their name after a certain amount of time has passed without using it. The only question is how long of a time is acceptable.

The game has been out for 4 years now. It seems to me, instead of trying to change naming conventions, a reasonable compromise of time just needs to be found. Make it a long time.

For VIP's, if they been unsubscribed for 1 year, they get an email from Turbine to their account that says the names of their characters will be released in 3 months, and to avoid this, they must resubscribe (as VIP or F2P) and log in. For F2P, make it 6 months without logging in, and 1 month warning instead of 3. Or make it the same. Whatever.

The point being - this is an issue. From the number of times this comes up on the forums, it obviously irks a decent percentage of the player base to have to see Bobb and BBobbb as characters just because someone in Feb 2006 made a character Bob for the day. So, find a middle ground, make the announcement, send an email out to everyone announcing the new system, and be done.

[Quarks]

For VIP's, if they haven't logged into a server in 1 year, they get an email from Turbine to their account that says the names of their characters will be released in 3 months, and to avoid this, they must log into that server at least once.

I don't agree.
While I absolutely want character names to be freed up, I don't think anyone with a paid up account should lose their names, whether they're logged in or not.

Bad impression on returning players I don't care about, and nor should Turbine. If someone wants to keep their names, they can take a break and keep their account active or at least activate it for a month every 3 months or so. That shows commitment. Refusing to keep paying but demanding to keep one's names is bull.

[RTN]

Turbine has a pretty inflexible policy of not stripping accounts of names and/or characters, so I'd say that this is unlikely to happen.

And as far as the "finite number of useful names" you mention - I have to politely but firmly refute that. Names are only limited by one's creativity and imagination... and perhaps even more by their vocabulary. After almost three years of the game being live, and a multi-server merge that happened - I needed a name for my new Paladin. Gospel was my first choice, and it was still open despite the time and the merge. Even later on than that - Misdemeanor was still available for a new Rogue.

If you are having issues with a character name - perhaps try a thesaurus (http://thesaurus.reference.com/) instead of just wailing that all the good names are gone. You'll be surprised...

Mem, I have a bone to pick with you. If you keep on making reasonable posts, I'll have to keep on giving you rep points. Stop it already, would you!

[Anneliese]

In Asheron's Call (Turbines first MMORPG) names are never freed up.

Even if someone made a name in November of 1999, and then never paid/logged in again, Turbine does not free up the name.

I like it that way - there are enough names out there. Just the generic ones are taken - find a unique one that fits you.

[Memnir]

Mem, I have a bone to pick with you. If you keep on making reasonable posts, I'll have to keep on giving you rep points. Stop it already, would you!It's okay, my friend.... that post was made last year. And, part of my '10 resolutions was to be far more unreasonable and nonsensical in my posting protocols this year then last.

:D

[Kindoki]

I don't agree.
While I absolutely want character names to be freed up, I don't think anyone with a paid up account should lose their names, whether they're logged in or not.

Bad impression on returning players I don't care about, and nor should Turbine. If someone wants to keep their names, they can take a break and keep their account active or at least activate it for a month every 3 months or so. That shows commitment. Refusing to keep paying but demanding to keep one's names is bull.

Sorry, I do agree with that. I was thinking more along the lines of their subscription being expired for a year. I just incorrectly stated what I was trying to say.