48967-name-reservation-roll-out-post-mortem

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== Content ==
			Hey all,So ya… that didn’t go so well. I think the criticisms levied upon us are justified for Tuesday’s Name Reservation System (NRS) troubles. Gaff and the team wanted me to sit down, and give the community a peek into what the actual issues were that we faced.I’m not going to make excuses for Carbine, but as many of you can respect, launch is chaotic. While we’ve done some things really well, we obviously didn’t knock the Name Reservation system out of the park. We’ll own our failures as much as we celebrate our successes.Speaking of our successes, it was one of our successes that gave us a false sense of confidence. Namely, our Open Beta key distribution website (http://wildstar-online.com/en/openbeta/) worked without a single problem. This was something we put together with duct tape and gumption in a few weeks’ time. We decided how best we could get as many keys to the players as possible, with very few, if any hoops to jump through. No emails, no partners, just make the doors as open as we could. Come to our site, get a key, and get playing.Our team was poised for the crush of players when we opened the Beta on the 8th, and we didn’t have a single hiccup with that system at all. We’ve processed hundreds of thousands of keys and had a ton of concurrency on that website, and it always held up under the load. Some tech context; we are hosting most of the guts of the key distribution page (and our Name Reservation System) on Amazon AWS instances. So, we were prepared to scale up as need be, but at that time we just didn’t need to. Everything seemed fine.What happened Tuesday was a series of events starting with the release of our Raids DevSpeak early in the morning. The team pushed that out the door, and then switched gears to ready themselves to publish the NRS webpage. In hindsight, this was a Bad Plan™. Our QA team was already stretched thin in order to get both pages tested on the already-tight, pre-launch deadlines. With the raids drop we drove lots of traffic to our site, and encouraged players to download the various multimedia assets we had available for them. We also published a 13MB banner asset on the WildStar-online homepage.Phase 1 -We published the page at 11am PDT as scheduled, and within minutes, the site buckled. We are gamers too; we knew everyone would be waiting for the moment it would be published. We had the NRS on the Amazon AWS and were ready to jump into action to give it more power. We just underestimated the impact the new 13MB banner asset would have on our web servers ability to push that data to all of our clients. This of course was compounded by everyone that was already on the site from the Raids Dev Speak, and everyone that was waiting for the NRS to go live.Weeks prior, I had scheduled a five hour Operations meeting to go over our launch plans via a “Table Read” meeting. Shortly after 11am team members started getting called out of that meeting in order to deal with the NRS issues. I knew something was really wrong when Gaff, and our main web guy walked in with long faces. It was decided that we would take down the page for 90 minutes to see if we could get on top of the load issues.We corrected this ‘Phase 1’ problem by putting the 13MB banner asset, and as many of our other video assets, on our CDN, and we brought everything back up at 1pm PDT, the website itself held under the load, but then revealed the next problem.Phase 2 -This phase was difficult for us. It turns out we had two different failure points, which made troubleshooting extremely difficult. Team A couldn’t find the problems, and thought that Team B could solve it. Team B couldn’t find the problems, and thought Team A could solve it. Truth is that there were problems on both sides, and that made things REALLY BAD for the players.While both teams worked together, more and more people started to get involved. As soon as my meeting ended, I started actively helping out where I could. We got the message out to the players while trying to get the right people additional data on what was going on. Management was interested, and helping assess and leverage resources where needed. At that point, we were in full crisis mode.Another problem that reared its ugly head, was that we had a pretty critical design flaw in our NRS page. The RESERVE button had no feedback for being clicked, and also sent a call to our Single Sign On (SSO) API for each click. Each of these had a 30s time out. We sort of DDoS’d ourselves through the honest actions of our users. Panic and confusion from clients as to if their names were successfully reserved added to the load, as people who would get through would stay hammering on the site trying to find out if it worked or not.We briefly threw up an error for ten minutes that said all clients needed a pre-order, and then switched it back. Our clicks immediately dropped by a significant margin, and then immediately skyrocketed when it came back. At that point we were confident that we were dealing with some non-human activity making life harder for us. When searching the logs later on, we found this to be true – mind you, this is still our fault, we should have prevented this from the get go.During all of this, there was serious discussion about whether to take the page down or not. We decided to keep going, as we had a few potential leads that were being actively investigated. One of them panned out.The guys who made the NRS found a bad configuration setting. Once fixed, almost immediately the Amazon AWS machines, and the database came back to life and started processing ALL THE THINGS. We went from processing a few hundred names over a span of 10 minutes to a few thousand over the same time frame. It was starting to work…or so we thought.Cue Phase 3….If you remember, there were two major problems. Now that we found and corrected the one major problem, the entire load slammed into the remaining weak point; our website’s F5 load balancers. Before we corrected the configuration setting, our website’s performance was intermittent but it was working more often than not. As soon as the configuration change took, we were throwing maintenance errors to the users when they tried to login. Users wanting to reserve a name needed to login so we could check that they’d pre-ordered the game.We started to process names at a good rate, so at this point persistence by the users was paying off in successful name registrations. It was also the time that we started taking down the account management of WildStar (new customers, Open Beta key redemptions), Aion, and Lineage 2 (all three games were unaffected). It is one thing to break our own stuff, but breaking someone else’s stuff does not a good corporate citizen make.We rebooted the F5’s with no positive gains, and then called another meeting. It was here that we made the decision to take the page down. We wanted to get a replacement page up and localized. We had to scramble to start making that happen. The Community Team made their post on the forums, and we noticed that people around the office were logging in just fine.Our F5’s should have always been able to have handled the load we saw (even if it was 10 times greater than anything we’d seen in Open Beta so far). So while the reboot didn’t immediately help, continual mucking with them, combined with a gradual decrease in traffic, allowed the F5’s to finally start working as they should have been. Interesting to note; the traffic we had when we got back in the office on Wednesday morning was three times what we had when the F5’s finally came back to life Tuesday night, and were running perfectly at that load. So it isn’t simply a case of “traffic subsided; now we can handle it.”After running solid for 90 minutes, we called the final meeting of the day. Even though we had just scrambled to pull in resources from all over to take down the page, it looked like everything was working. We decided to keep the page up since every time we checked, we were gaining thousands of names, and called it a night.I don’t mean to gloss over the decision making process about whether to keep going or to take it down. We had every discipline in these war room meetings, which were mostly stand-ups in and around the Web Team’s area. We polled the various disciplines/stakeholders each time. Community was educating us all on the feedback and their recommendation, Customer Support was reporting in from their perspective, Ops and Web weighed in on their progress towards resolutions, Brand had their input, and we all came together as a team to make the calls. You guys gave us your feedback, and that feedback got into those war room meetings. In real time.Where we’re at now –The NRS has been humming along perfectly since Phase 3 was resolved, and now we get to fix all of the problems caused during Phase 2. There are still a few bugs in the system that need correcting, or might be corrected by the time this is published. We have a few site design optimizations going in.We know that there are people out there frustrated with the poor experience and just randomly typed in letters, that we are incorrectly blocking names with “ss” (and a few other letter combinations), and that there are people who were sharing computers whose session token wasn’t correctly clearing between users, causing names to be saved on the wrong accounts.We will do what we can to help users resolve their problems. Our support team should have all the tools they need to help you change “Asdfssdf” to whatever name that is still available to you.I think the one unanswered question that I cannot answer is, why we chose to do global name reservations? And the answer is that I don’t know at this time. Even though I had the information for Gaff’s AMA, I only know why we didn’t do realm specific names. The main engineer who designed the system is in China on a well-deserved vacation he had planned a year ago, before our launch date was finalized. So I don’t have an answer at this time.I hope I haven’t bored you with this look behind the curtain. We should have done better, and for that you have my apologies, and that of the team here at Carbine Studios.	
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Well, I do think they should have done server reservations, just because global simple equates to TONS more names being taken up by launch than needed, hands down. I think with that in place, we could have reserved 2 or maybe even 3 names for people who werent sure just what server they'd be playing on or various long-term names (Like I use Sikare, Sikari and Lokowi). As it stands, however many servers we plan on having across the globe, its eating up names that many times faster, and waiting because half the good names are taken to make your main is just a huge pain in the ass for everyone involved. So that's just my 2 cents.
 
What should have happened (IMO):
- Realm based.
- 2-3 reserve-able names, could be on various servers to reserve the same name.
- Better stress testing prior.
 
But really, if names were server based, people wouldn't have complained as much because the odds that their names were available SOMEWHERE would have multiplied. Sort of feel like this wasn't thought out well enough, the cautionary posts and warnings were there... Sucks it couldn't have turned out better.	
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			Appreciate the transparency, as usual.	
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Thanks Cougar !
 
What a hell of a day it must have been. That remembers me some emergency situations when I was working in (a swiss bank) security department. Fond memories, 10+ years after.	
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I love the communication you guys have with us.
I know nothing about how servers/websites etc works, but how likely is it that these "surprise issues" will occur during headstart that will prevent us from playing the game?
 
The only MMORPG game that I've played in the past 5 years that pulled of headstart flawlessly was Rift, GW2 you could log in and play the game but they had other major issues such as AH/Overflow servers etc not working properly.	
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			OP, this is why I have tons of faith in Carbine.  Everyone makes mistakes, few people own them and learn from them.	
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Apology accepted as far as I'm concerned. This is way more of a response than most companies in any field would offer for something that in the end isn't life or death, it just was a crummy situation.
 
In fact, this is maybe more than the game itself on some levels why I love W*, I can read your post and feel how much the problem bothered you and the Carbine team. Those are the kind of folks I want to pay to play their game and experience the highs and lows with, because I know you care whole heartedly about gaming in general and are striving to be the best.
 
It's a long road to the top, but I know a lot of people that are right there with you guys for the long haul.	
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Wtb dislike function. -_-
 
As for the wall of text, it's nice to see such detail from the devs as to what went wrong and what their decision making was. It's unfortunate that it went this bad, but I have faith that you guys will make sure launch and beyond goes a lot smoother.
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I love #OverExplainyCougarMode
 
Mistakes aren't bad as long as you own them and learn from them!	
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			que the "I can never be happy with anything" responses....	
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			Great rundown. My only remaining question is probably something best answered by Community. Was there a reason for all the venue hopping when it came to providing updates during the day? Forums to Regular Twitter, to a new Ops Twitter, to Reddit, etc. I understand some of that probably came while the forums were seriously bogged, but as a user I want to say that it would be SERIOUSLY beneficial to have a predictable plan in place ahead of time, so people know to check Place A first, then Place B if that's not working, etc.During Closed and Winter Beta, you guys did a pretty fantastic job at regular updates during crisis times, and the NRS day was a marked departure from that that disappointed a lot of people.	
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			Thank you, Cougar, for your transparency in explaining, not only, the issues with the design of the system itself but the decision making process that happened throughout.	
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			Thanks for the clear explanation, but what about the oh so logical but never mentioned free rename after the 14 days?	
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Damn. Seeing this kind of posts explaining exactly what went wrong with transparency is just wonderful....
 
<3 Carbine.	
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Thanks for the clear explanation, but what about the oh so logical but never mentioned free rename after the 14 days?
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{| class="blockquote"
Thanks for the clear explanation, but what about the oh so logical but never mentioned free rename after the 14 days?
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			Thanks for taking the time to explain everything in such detail Cougar, as always I am glad to see you are on top of everything :D	
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			Thanks for the peek behind the curtain, Cougar. We appreciate the hard work and rapid response your teams there at Carbine put in that day. Nothing is ever perfect, and you and the rest of the staff's forthright approach to explaining and owning the issues has been incredible. Keep up the hard work, and don't let these occasional hiccups overshadow the amazing amount of accomplishments you and the rest of the team have (and will continue to) accumulate!	
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			Guh, what a series of unfortunate events.  Thank you for your transparency and I am still looking forward to launch!  	
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			As someone who works in the software industry, albeit not games, thank you for the detailed post-mortem (and boy, do I feel for you guys diagnosing that problem!). This level of transparency really shows what kind of team you guys have over there!	
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			The explanation is appreciated. Love you guys for your transparency <3	
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			Why always whining for compensations? Shit happen, deal with it, it's the life.	
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Thanks for the explanation.
 
I'd be lying if I said I wasn't still dissapointed, as I purprosely stayed home to get my name, but couldn't, but I'll still be there for launch.	
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			wow.   Thanks for the clarity.  I deal with the software testing at my company and I appreciate the detail you went into on the problems.  I also love how my company ran into the same stuff that Carbine did.  Must be doing something right if we're hitting the same issues as a AAA company :)	
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			Cheers for the write up, Cougar. I can only imagine how crazy stressful it must of been in shop that day.	
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			Sounds like you had a rough day.  I get it, I develop integrations between warehouse management and ERPs for a living (try having an integration go down when the customer is literally loosing tens of thousands of dollars an hour) and bad things happen.  I certainly appreciate your explanation, but I would still like to see a free rename token made available to pre-orders (or any character made in the first 14 days)... not really because of the troubles with the implementation, but more because of the design issue blocking names across servers unnaturally restricts otherwise available names.	
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Thank you for communicating this with us, It's primarily why we love you guys so much.
 
I can't speak for everyone else, but I want to say I'm sorry to the community and to Carbine for using the name forcing method. Ididn't realize it contributed to making things worst and thought it'd be the same as me just mashing the reserve button....which also doesn't help either. Having worked in PR and marketing, I know first hand the stresses that can come with things not working as they should or some terrible event throwing a wrench into your companies plans. 
 
*bow*
 
I have faith in you and your staff to make Wildstar and the experience awesome. Keep up the good work...
 
As I've said in other threads and to friends...In the short time I've been hear I can honestly say that for once I can feel the effort and feel the progress you guys make as opposed to expecting or hoping that you will.
 
So please don't worry so much anymore and continue onward...as they say "live and learn"
 
I know that asking further about the global aspect of the name reservation is out f the question for now. However is it possible to release the names after a character has been created with the name reservation or did the guy on holiday do that too?	
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Sounds like you guys had a rough day, and I hope you recovered well chaps and thank you for respecting the community enough to provide details.
 
...but the global name restriction is ultimately the cause of this. The entire community desperately clambering to reserve a single name out of fear of losing their online identity caused this. Even worse; guild names. The rest are bumps along the way. This was a design failure, not a technical one.
 
With the upmost respect, and I do have a ton of respect for Carbine, one guy being on holiday isn't reason enough to not change bad policy decisions or to make functional changes to software platforms.	
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			I feel for you guys.  My husband goes through issues such as this, but in a financial structure.  There are no set hours and you work until you find a fix.  Everything depends on someone else doing something and it's tough to find exactly where the broken piece is.  Much of what you said is greek to me, but I appreciate you saying it.	
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Thank you Cougar. I really appreciate the hard work and the transparency you and the rest of the Carbine staff have demonstrated. I can only imagine what the atmosphere in the office was like that day; I've worked in various IT-related departments, and I've seen firsthand the kind of panic and frustration that ensues when something like this goes wrong. Good on y'all for keeping it together and finding the solution!
 
I just have a quickie question: I'm wondering if the team could consider releasing reserved names upon being claimed (as in, when a toon is created with that name on a server) rather than keeping the name reserved across all servers for the entire 14 days? (If that's even a thing that can happen?)
 
I don't know enough about how this stuff works so I don't even know if it's possible, but it's just an idea that was rolling around in my head. If it's not do-able, no biggie, I'm just curious. :)	
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I do appreciate the honest humbling admittance to messing up and the fact you guys came up transparent with us.
A salut to that, that's for sure. I honestly feel that this entire idea was bad to begin with but we all have things we like and dislike.
 
I wish to note though, that the twitter post on.. "Thanks for helping us stress test the servers"
If it was from you guys, seriously that was just in bad taste, that was one of the first things I came across news I've received too.
 
If it wasn't from you guys, screw that guy >=o son of a...	
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Wildstar is an AMAZING game and easily stands on its own, but you throw in the Dev team with their unique combination of talent, personality, honesty and transparency and that little equation equals a metric $#%@ton of awesome!  Carbine and Wildstar have my unfettered support for as long as they continue in the business.  Cue up the Whitney Houston....I WILLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL ALLLLLLLLWAAAAYYYYYS LOOOOOOOVVVVVVVVVVEEEEEEEEEEEEE YOUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU
 
Much <3 to ALL the Carbine devs
 
Bedstone	
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I really appreciate the full run down. 
 
But now after reading this, it seems I have a new issue. If names with a "ss" in them were blocked, that explains why both of my first choices might have been taken. Do I simply contact CS to ask if I can change?  How best should I proceed? 	
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			Thank you for the explanation, Cougar. Much appreciated.	
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As always, the transparency is greatly appreciated! 
I really feel for you guys, I know you want to do it the best you can for us, and sadly, this time, it just didn't quite work out. It's good that you got it all fixed though, and were able to move forward!
 
Accidents happen, it's really great that you guys are so forthcoming with an explanation!	
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I love #OverExplainyCougarMode
 
Mistakes aren't bad as long as you own them and learn from them!
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Sounds like you guys had a rough day, and I hope you recovered well chaps and thank you for respecting the community enough to provide details.
 
Love you Cougar... but the global name restriction is ultimately the cause of this. The entire community desperately clambering to reserve a single name out of fear of losing their online identity caused this. The rest are bumps along the way.
 
With the upmost respect, and I do have a ton of respect for Carbine, one guy being on holiday isn't reason enough to not change bad policy decisions or to make functional changes to software platforms... I find it crazy that one guy developed the NRS and dreamt up it's limits, too.
 
Name reservation shouldn't have been global - and I say that as someone who reserved my name.
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Oh yes, the free name change "credit" that made a ton of logical sense. I saw that feedback come in after this article was off to localization. 
 
The Name Change system (backend, you've seen the front end roughed in) isn't complete, is over scope, over budget, and coming in extremely hot, and we didn't think we could actually deliver on a "free time-limited" name change. We did talk about it, but threw it out with our lack of confidence in delivering. The last thing we needed was to make a promise that we couldn't deliver on after an already crappy situation. 	
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Oh yes, the free name change "credit" that made a ton of logical sense. I saw that feedback come in after this article was off to localization. 
 
The Name Change system (backend, you've seen the front end roughed in) isn't complete, is over scope, over budget, and coming in extremely hot, and we didn't think we could actually deliver on a "free time-limited" name change. We did talk about it, but threw it out with our lack of confidence in delivering. The last thing we needed was to make a promise that we couldn't deliver on after an already crappy situation. 
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			So I logged back into the reserve name just to look at the names I had chosen to notice that the Guild name I had reserved was gone and when I tried to put it in it said it was already taken. Is there anyway I can get the guild name back or am I out of luck?	
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Thanks for that Cougar, much appreciated. I love Carbine so much! I was pretty darn ticked off at the whole thing, but the next day i just felt guilty for getting so upset and easily giving into the "Carbine Name reserve hate". At any rate apology accepted! I actually FINALLY got my my 18th and LAST choice for a name locked down (literally it was the very last name on the list i had written down) at 1 am PDT before I went to bed. I thought back to all the names I've had in my MMO experience and frankly whatever name I get grows on me. The experiences i have in game with that name after months of playing with guildies and hearing it over voice chat along with my characters advancement is what makes it special. (To me) So i suppose my advice to people that might still be upset about not getting there name would be to use YOUR imagination to come up with something unique to you, it might not be a status symbol like "Death" or "Cloud" that makes people go oooooo and aaaaaaaaw, but its your actions and attitudes as a player and a part of the community that will give your name special meaning and eventually will become its own status symbol. At any rate thats my opinion...Thanks for the post again Cougar.
 
Oh and free rename token for preorders might go along way. You could distribute them June 16th...just 1 per account. Make em last 48 hours so people dont save them potentially taking away name change profit in the future. (if you even have that)
Just saying.
As far as customer service goes, it would be pretty *hardcore*. ;)	
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			mistakes happen, next time don't stand in red shit, buff up, rdy check, pull!	
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I am not sure you all realise this, but this level of transparency is really appreciated.
 
It also makes some of us feel like honorary Team members of Carbine.
 
The result is, we are all wishing you well. Good luck over the next 2 weeks!	
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			Them response times. Thank you Cougar, you are the best, seriously. I wish upon you guys a good and smooth launch day for both the head start and actual launch. These transparent explanations on why things went south are awesome, but I hope we won't need too many in the future ;)	
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Oh yes, the free name change "credit" that made a ton of logical sense. I saw that feedback come in after this article was off to localization. 
 
The Name Change system (backend, you've seen the front end roughed in) isn't complete, is over scope, over budget, and coming in extremely hot, and we didn't think we could actually deliver on a "free time-limited" name change. We did talk about it, but threw it out with our lack of confidence in delivering. The last thing we needed was to make a promise that we couldn't deliver on after an already crappy situation. 
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Thanks for the info.
 
I am going to give Carbine the Faith they deserve. 
When they say the Devs are listening, we know by proof of their actions it isn't a Lie.
 
They have heard the cries and complaints about name changes and guild name changes. I HIGHLY Doubt, that the 5 boomboxes are it. I Believe that they will go through a future effort to Correct what they can to help everyone obtain a Name they want/like to have. 
 
But everyone be a little patient, there is more than just twenty or even a hundred people playing this game at launch. Consider how many people are buying this game, who have pre-ordered and are getting their 3-day head start. There is WAY more of us then there are of Them.
 
Try to give them a Little Credit, a little Faith. 
 
They have proven that they are Listening, and Wanting to give us far more than Really any other company/MMO that has come out in the past.. And Yes I've been in the MMORPG community sense 1999, EQ1.	
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Thank you for the explanation.
 
As upset as I was, I guess it's better for this to happen during Name Reservation and not Early Access. Hopefully, a lesson was learned.
 
I should apologize as well because I don't think I, as a paying costumer and forum dweller, handled the chaos very well, and while I didn't go "full retard", I did panic a bit and blew things out of proportion. These things happen and will always happen as long as the technology is handled by humans.
 
Perhaps when the Name Change service is live, all the folks that got affected could be first in line.	
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Cougar, thanks for taking the time to write all this up and outline everything happened over the course of that Tuesday.
 
 
No joke. Quickly posting "first" and "second" so you can take time to write after the fact is lame.
 
You don't get credit for being the first poster. It just makes you look like a tool.
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			So if your original name did have ss in it, would support be willing to change your second choice to your first choice (that contain ss in it) if it's still available? I kept getting the error saying that my first choice was invalid but I thought it was just another way of saying it was taken since there was nothing offensive about it.	
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"We will do what we can to help users resolve their problems. Our support team should have all the tools they need to help you change “Asdfssdf” to whatever name that is still available to you."
 
What about tracking down and getting my name back?	
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So if your original name did have ss in it, would support be willing to change your second choice to your first choice (that contain ss in it) if it's still available? I kept getting the error saying that my first choice was invalid but I thought it was just another way of saying it was taken since there was nothing offensive about it.
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true that i didnt i get a full loot in NRS but thanks for the transparency guys.
keep the good work guys we have faith on you	
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Thank you Cougar for the detailed run-down on the NRS incident. I have to admit, that I was somewhat grumpy that day, too, when it tried to reserve my name and it didn't work out. So I checked in every quarter until the next day I finally got my name reserved. So I'm all happy now. No hard feelings.
 
I know what it means to be in the Dev/Ops team on launch day. Got my fair share of work experience in that area, too. It's usually the small stuff that breaks everything and takes forever to sort out. BUT you guys got in covered within less than a day, so thumbs up. Keep up the good job. You now, the Ops Team does a perfect job, when nobody notices. And up to this point in the beta (I played all the beta weekends) I barely noticed you guys.  ;)
 
In that sense, keep up the good work and lets all have a smoot launch on May 31st.  :)	
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I'm kind of torn here.
 
1. I used the system, got the name I wanted, but it took 9 hours. I honestly would not have been that upset if I didn't get my first pick.
2. While I didn't really care about getting my name or not, the whole event shook my faith in Carbine's decision making process. THIS is what bothered me
3. The compensation of five boom boxes does not seem like a good solution.
4. This post mortem is very much appreciated and helps me understand the sequence of events that lead up to this. It helps mollify the worst thing for me, confidence that Carbine knows what its doing as a company.
 
So thank you much, I appreciate the transparency.	
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Nice write up, very much appreciated.  But did you mean to say "all three games were affected", because you have "unaffected" there.
 
Did you guys ever figure out what was up with your load balancers?  I personally *LOVE* dealing with misbehaving hardware that works on a schedule I can't figure out.  Always makes a frustrating day worse.	
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Hey all,
**snip**
 
I think the one unanswered question that I cannot answer is, why we chose to do global name reservations? **snip**  The main engineer who designed the system is in China on a well-deserved vacation he had planned a year ago, before our launch date was finalized. So I don’t have an answer at this time. **snip**.
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Thanks a lot for the explanation, remind me a lot of thing I've experienced ^^
 
 
But why no gzip compression on your page ?	
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Thanks for the insight, Cougar. 
 
The fact that you guys have been active and transparent on the forums and other social media is a huge differentiation between Carbine and other MMO developers. The game is great and stands on its own, but service is how you will get customers to stick with your game (and therefore profit!). I remember playing another MMO that started with great customer service and support and by the end they didn't care about their customers. They are currently losing subscriptions like it is their job even though they continue to release expansion after expansion. Content is less important than listening when there is a problem and being willing to try to fix it.
 
TL;DR: As long as you guys stay true to the slogan "the devs are listening," you'll have lots of subscribers that will overlook any mistakes that are made. 	
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Appreciate the transparency, and I have a question that I don't think I've seen posed/answered.
 
1) When the game goes live and we claim the names we reserved, would that name become available on other servers?  I know we have 14 days to claim our reserved name, but do we have exclusive rights to it for those 14 days, or is it on the market as soon as the reserved name is claimed?	
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Interesting info.  I think your biggest mistake was making a website that does not give feedback to users.
 
Your site didn't really give useful feedback to users when they registered - ?? is NOT useful, honestly.  
Your site also gave wrong information with names counting down... but then somehow not there anymore hours later.
 
In the future a website should present the errors... even "Error occurred, try again" would have been more helpful than ?? and outright misinformation.
 
I've said it many times that I don't agree with you guys keeping the results of this fiasco as is... but it does not personally affect me.
You should have solved the problems, scrapped the entire database and put up the website a day later in working condition.  I think that would have been the ethical thing to do, but I think you guys don't want the backlash from those that were successful.  Either way you look at it, someone is going to hate you, but you could have done the right thing and be hated... instead of the wrong thing and be hated.
 
You're human afterall and prone to failure :P.  This is the second big mistake you guys have made in my eyes with just 2 months to release.  I think that's much better than other MMOs, but try not to *cupcake* up at the last 100meters.  It'd be a total shame because this is a beautiful game.	
----
			I'll admit I was pretty mad when it was all (not) happening. But I know I can't stay mad at cougars, I know what its like on the other end too.	
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
Appreciate the transparency, and I have a question that I don't think I've seen posed/answered.
 
1) When the game goes live and we claim the names we reserved, would that name become available on other servers?  I know we have 14 days to claim our reserved name, but do we have exclusive rights to it for those 14 days, or is it on the market as soon as the reserved name is claimed?
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
Appreciate the transparency, and I have a question that I don't think I've seen posed/answered.
 
1) When the game goes live and we claim the names we reserved, would that name become available on other servers?  I know we have 14 days to claim our reserved name, but do we have exclusive rights to it for those 14 days, or is it on the market as soon as the reserved name is claimed?
----
			Thank you for a well written and well thought out response on the matter, The transparency is an ever prudent part of what makes this game something that I took the leap of faith in Pre Ordering.  :)	
----
			Somebody still reserved our guild name even though we've had it through closed and open beta.....any way to get this resolved? I have a screenshot proving I had it during the whole reservation fiasco....  :( It won't be too fun changing all the social media links as well as domain stuff....	
----
			
Not sure if there is much to reply to, well written Cougar, thanks.  Bummed you guys dropped the ball on this, but thanks for the explanation/apology.  It is appreciated.
 
Now... you do know you will have a crap-ton of players that will may overwhelm the login servers and starting zones during the headstart, and you are prepared .................. riiiight?	
----
			
TRANSPARENCY.
 
Sorry, everyone else was saying it.	
----
			I just want to say THANKS! for this post, it is very appreciated and actually quiet interesting. I do however also hope that you and others who are here reading this will learn from this mistake and be able to deliver better in the future should something similar happen.	
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{| class="blockquote"
Oh yes, the free name change "credit" that made a ton of logical sense. I saw that feedback come in after this article was off to localization. 
 
The Name Change system (backend, you've seen the front end roughed in) isn't complete, is over scope, over budget, and coming in extremely hot, and we didn't think we could actually deliver on a "free time-limited" name change. We did talk about it, but threw it out with our lack of confidence in delivering. The last thing we needed was to make a promise that we couldn't deliver on after an already crappy situation. 
----
			
I won't say that I had a good experience with all this...  but it could have been a lot worse.  Shit happens at every MMO launch, and you just sort of have to roll with the punches.  Not that we don't all hope for, and every dev strives for, a flawless launch.  Its just that MMOs and all of their interconnected systems and server farms are enormously complicated beasts.  Mistakes were made, and have been owned up to.  As usual the excellent carbine staff have tried hard, and shown that they do care what happens and that they are listening to all of us screaming masses :)
 
In short, thanks for the information. I forgive you all for being only human, and am greatly looking forward to some amazing times in your game.	
----
			
Thank you for giving us the info and being as open with us as possible.  This is the entire reason I have faith in WildStar even when you do things I don't agree with, you have point and purpose.  You appear to care about your player base, not just for the money they are giving you, but also for their input as a community.  Giving the goods as it were, is never an easy process.  But you have my absolute respect!
 
Thank you	
----
			Thanks, not only for the transparency, but for not talking down to us or dumbing down your terminology. Even if some are still annoyed, they are educated a bit more about the process that goes on behind the curtain.	
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
Somebody still reserved our guild name even though we've had it through closed and open beta.....any way to get this resolved? I have a screenshot proving I had it during the whole reservation fiasco....  :( It won't be too fun changing all the social media links as well as domain stuff....
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
Ok, I appreciate the limitations you're facing, but your response to this can't possibly be, "well we can't make any promises we're unsure of, so instead we're going to do nothing." Without making promises, are you actively seeking a means to rectify the situation?
 
How about you promise that, "SOMEDAY, a 'free time-limited' credit be applied to every pre-order account?" This will not necessarily be there 14 days after launch when the news free up. It could be months later. But it will allow people to create an alt with the name they want when the name frees up, then when the credit is applied, they can delete the alt and use the credit on their main.
 
The concern, which I'm sure you understand is that a hardcore player is going to get to 50 in that first 17 days with their main. They won't want to delete a 50 character (or at the least start over with a noob char when they could be actively gearing up that 50). However, they do want a now free name. Granted my approach is very difficult to explain to the masses, but at the very least, it is doing something to address the situation.    
----
			
appreciate the post and transparency.
this will be my 9th mmo (i´m around MMO´s since UO beta in 1998) and that was also the last time devs (especially Designer Dragon and Runesabre for those remembering) really explained what and why something went wrong. your overall reaction to this issue added to the confidence i have in the design, team and future of this game.	
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{| class="blockquote"
So you want to be compensated for your "inconvenience".  This is a sad state of affairs in today's consumers mindsets.  You didn't lose anything of real tangible value.  A perk or a consideration is what was delayed.  There is ZERO guaranty the name you wanted (guild or personal) would have been available the moment it went live if everything was perfect.  There was a just a chance.  And overall you still had that chance.  Was it a a mess... yes.  Are you owed anything beyond an apology?  No.  Are you even owed the explanation and honesty of the event?  No.  But you have those things.  Don't turn around and be "that" guy or girl who feels because the talk shows and general sound bite media feel EVERYTHING deserves compensation that somehow you do.  Very disappointing to see this in the community.  No game, no company needs this type of attitude.
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
So you want to be compensated for your "inconvenience".  This is a sad state of affairs in today's consumers mindsets.  You didn't lose anything of real tangible value.  A perk or a consideration is what was delayed.  There is ZERO guaranty the name you wanted (guild or personal) would have been available the moment it went live if everything was perfect.  There was a just a chance.  And overall you still had that chance.  Was it a a mess... yes.  Are you owed anything beyond an apology?  No.  Are you even owed the explanation and honesty of the event?  No.  But you have those things.  Don't turn around and be "that" guy or girl who feels because the talk shows and general sound bite media feel EVERYTHING deserves compensation that somehow you do.  Very disappointing to see this in the community.  No game, no company needs this type of attitude.
----
			
Or just think of a creative name that everyone else won't already have.  I waited almost a day after registration and got my name.  Because it's not common but it's still awesome.  =)  Best name for a warrior EVAR.
 
If someone has your name the instant the registration goes up... pro tip.  You have a cheesy common name.  Just use xXSephirothXx or something.  lololol
 
Registering a tacky common name first doesn't make it any better.	
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
Try Coup De Grâce
 
Alt + 0226 on num pad for the A.
 
That's how it should be spelled anyway.
 
That was my character name on WoW since vanilla.  Undead warrior on Burning Blade.  =D
----
			Thanks for the transparency on this! it could have been a lot worse and gone on for a lot longer. As a developer I understand how sucky the unknown problems are, really stressful.	
----
			Thanks Cougar!  As always, I love Carbine's transparency.  The whole vibe coming from the company is one the the best I've felt in a while and is actually a component of my excitement for this game.	
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
I really appreciate you giving me this suggestion.I just tried it and unfortunately says it is taken. If I recall, I think they normalize names, so no matter what symbols you use, it would still be "Coup De Grace". Thanks so much though for looking out! Hopefully whoever registered will see this and help us out!
----
			
This is a level of transparency that I haven't seen from any other company so far.  Ever. I'm 42, been a pretty hard core gamer for years, starting with MMOs back when Ultima Online represented the height of sophisitication. 
It's very, very hard to be able to own up to an error, but then show everything you did to make it right. 
While things can always change in the future, as for right now, Cougar, you and the rest of the crew at Carbine, you have a very dedicated fanboy. Thanks for the effort you have put in, letting me see what you're doing back there, and giving me some insight.
 
I look forward to spending a few years with your brainchild! Please keep up this level of integrity, and I will keep giving you my moneys.	
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
Or just think of a creative name that everyone else won't already have.
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
Some people were trolled and had their names and guild names stolen.
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
Been answered.  The name is yours until the 17th, no matter if you make a character with it or not.  Whether it should be that way or not is something we will continue to debate through the 16th. :-)
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
So you want to be compensated for your "inconvenience".  This is a sad state of affairs in today's consumers mindsets.  You didn't lose anything of real tangible value.  A perk or a consideration is what was delayed.  There is ZERO guaranty the name you wanted (guild or personal) would have been available the moment it went live if everything was perfect.  There was a just a chance.  And overall you still had that chance.  Was it a a mess... yes.  Are you owed anything beyond an apology?  No.  Are you even owed the explanation and honesty of the event?  No.  But you have those things.  Don't turn around and be "that" guy or girl who feels because the talk shows and general sound bite media feel EVERYTHING deserves compensation that somehow you do.  Very disappointing to see this in the community.  No game, no company needs this type of attitude.
----
			
I understand that the name change system isnt in place and thats why you cant guarantee it before release, but would it be possible to get a name change token along the way?
 
As it is now. I can level for 14 days only to realize that the guy who reserved the name i wanted just didnt want it afterall, so now im sitting there with 14 days of levelling down the drain if i have intentions of having that name or pay up whatever the cost is.	
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
Oh yes, the free name change "credit" that made a ton of logical sense. I saw that feedback come in after this article was off to localization. 
 
The Name Change system (backend, you've seen the front end roughed in) isn't complete, is over scope, over budget, and coming in extremely hot, and we didn't think we could actually deliver on a "free time-limited" name change. We did talk about it, but threw it out with our lack of confidence in delivering. The last thing we needed was to make a promise that we couldn't deliver on after an already crappy situation. 
----
			
The system definitely did not work as intended, but 100% kudos for at least explaining and owning the situation. There is/was no way to make everyone happy after this, but at least you're owning it and discussing with the community.
 
You increased my brand loyalty 100% just by doing this.
Thank you	
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I appreciate the explanation but I didn't think it was necessary. You guys made a mistake and you owned it. I honestly didn't need a technical explanation. I've moved on from that. No point raking the devs over coals. 
 
What I am most interested about is how the problem can be remedied. Like others, I agree the boom boxes are not helpful but I also believe they aren't the real compensation. 
 
I look forward to seeing what other solutions can be developed if expiring name changes are not a possibility.	
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{| class="blockquote"
What happens though after I reserve it on all the servers I think I might want to play on in the event of server merges?
 
Say I decide to take my name on all EU PVE servers, I'd like to know if Carbine has decided whether my name will be saved permanently or if they'd 'release' the name back by auto-renaming a character if it hadn't been used in say, 6-12 months.
 
I know it looks like a dick move to take names on servers I'm not playing on but I was merged twice on swtor, losing names is a pain in the ass, if I can protect myself from that I will. I just want to know if that means logging all those characters every 6 months or so to keep the name or not.
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
Say I decide to take my name on all EU PVE servers, I'd like to know if Carbine has decided whether my name will be saved permanently or if they'd 'release' the name back by auto-renaming a character if it hadn't been used in say, 6-12 months.
 
I know it looks like a dick move to take names on servers I'm not playing on but I was merged twice on swtor, losing names is a pain in the ass, if I can protect myself from that I will. I just want to know if that means logging all those characters every 6 months or so to keep the name or not.
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
So why not scrap the entire thing and do a headstart day free for all.  You guys failed on the site.  Have no backend to fix it later and have let your main person that designed this debacle to run free weeks before launch.  Scrap it.  Its a failure on every level.  Just remove it and let it be a free for all on headstart day and let it be on a server by server baises.  There is NO downside.  Do the right thing.
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I just want to take this moment to:
 
1) Thank you for the transparency and the write-up about the problems, and the apology.  It is very much appreciated.
 
2) Apologize for being one of those horrible people who were F5ing and clicking the big green "RESERVE" button a gajillion times trying to get my name reserved.  I'm sure my contributions to putting the page on a load were really a drop in the pond, but I certainly didn't help in my excitement.
Thanks, Cougar!	
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
So why not scrap the entire thing and do a headstart day free for all.  You guys failed on the site.  Have no backend to fix it later and have let your main person that designed this debacle to run free weeks before launch.  Scrap it.  Its a failure on every level.  Just remove it and let it be a free for all on headstart day and let it be on a server by server baises.  There is NO downside.  Do the right thing.
----
			
Thank you for being forthright with this. I know this was a site issue, and not a game one, but I also know that any crack in the overall production causes people to lose faith. Yes, it could have been done better, but hopefully this gives a realistic picture of what the demand is for this game, and what people expect in order to make it the next big mmo.
 
A request, if I may?
 
Is there any chance we could see a big list of all the names that got reserved? Many of us did not get what we were promised because of technical issues, and now we have to consider alternatives. It would be very nice to avoid the endless string of "That name is unavailable." because we're taking shots in the dark on day one of the head start.
 
Also, if boom boxes are what we're getting, please make them good. No sammiches, no chests of random crafting mats. A name is something very special, and if that can't be delivered, the replacement had better be pretty damn cool.
 
You have an excellent game, and there are bound to be a few hiccups in launching it. But, as long as you guys continue to respect your consumers, we'll keep pulling for you.
 
Thanks again for a great game and an even better dev team.	
----
			
I'm just blown away by the transparency shown by the Carbine Dev's. It's so uncommon in my gaming experiences. It certainly is appreciated and only adds to the reasons that this game will prove to be sucessful.
Well done	
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
You didn't lose anything of real tangible value.
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
It absolutly was awful to start with but saying the system is a failure on every level is a bit disingenuious when it has been running fine for days now and working properly. There are a lot of people who have managed to save names through the system. You'd have a point if no one was able to reserve names but that's not the case. Your whole "there is NO downside" is wrong as well. The downside is for people who were able to manage to get their names to suddenly be told "yea so even though you thought you had it you need to try again".
----
			Thanks for the explanation, I appreciate the transparency.	
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
They'll need a middle ground. 
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
I lost something that was of immense value to me. A name, that denotes my identity and image.
No compentation is going to make up for it, I just want my name back, that's all I want as compenstation.
I was there the moment the system went live. I tried at least 50 times to lock in my name and it never worked. I got there before the trolls got the idea, and I lost anyways due to Carbine's failure of a system.
----
			
Thanks for the detailed post, but
 
{| class="blockquote"
I think the one unanswered question that I cannot answer is, why we chose to do global name reservations? And the answer is that I don’t know at this time. Even though I had the information for Gaff’s AMA, I only know why we didn’t do realm specific names. The main engineer who designed the system is in China on a well-deserved vacation he had planned a year ago, before our launch date was finalized. So I don’t have an answer at this time.
I hope I haven’t bored you with this look behind the curtain. We should have done better, and for that you have my apologies, and that of the team here at Carbine Studios.
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
...but the global name restriction is ultimately the cause of this. The entire community desperately clambering to reserve a single name out of fear of losing their online identity caused this. Even worse; guild names. The rest are bumps along the way. This was a design failure, not a technical one.
 
With the upmost respect, and I do have a ton of respect for Carbine, one guy being on holiday isn't reason enough to not change bad policy decisions or to make functional changes to software platforms.
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
I lost something that was of immense value to me. A name, that denotes my identity and image.No compentation is going to make up for it, I just want my name back, that's all I want as compenstation.I was there the moment the system went live. I tried at least 50 times to lock in my name and it never worked. It wasn't until 5 hours later that someone finally got to reserve my name.I got there before the trolls got the idea, and I lost anyways due to Carbine's failure of a system.
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
Except many of those folks took names that had been "reserved" by others earlier only to find that they were not accepted.  Others used scripts to get through as well.  The entire process was not working correctly.  Since there is no way to tell the FAIR way is to give everyone an equal chance again.  Heck everyone would have a BETTER chance to get the name they want because it would be on a server baises and not some stupid global thing that locks names down for weeks. 
----
			I said it before and I'll say it again whenever I have the chance: the problem was not your website, it was the out-dated naming system you choose to use. The character name issue has  been solved in many MMOs in the past few years, and should have never been an issue here either. It was a bad design choice, not bad website design.	
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
It turns out we had two different failure points, which made troubleshooting extremely difficult. Team A couldn’t find the problems, and thought that Team B could solve it. Team B couldn’t find the problems, and thought Team A could solve it.
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
I lost something that was of immense value to me. A name, that denotes my identity and image.
No compentation is going to make up for it, I just want my name back, that's all I want as compenstation.
I was there the moment the system went live. I tried at least 50 times to lock in my name and it never worked. It wasn't until 5 hours later that someone finally got to reserve my name.
I got there before the trolls got the idea, and I lost anyways due to Carbine's failure of a system.
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
a middle ground would actually be, to remove "global" reservation and make people with a reserved name choose 1 to 3 or 5 servers, on which their name will be reserved and open up the name for the other servers, as soon as there are server lists.
 
What people do not see: the problem with global reservation is not the popular names like Sparky, Roxxor or Darkknight. The problem is the names, only a handful people usually choose. Example: my main WoW-Character name exists only 13 times in WoW according to Armory. Compared to names more than 200 players chose for their character, that is pretty rare. But with global reservation, those pretty rare names are also, well, gone. And thats kind of .. yeah... sad. (and for the record: I got my name. And I wouldn't mind being forced to choose a server so that anyone willing to play with "my" name can do so. Or at least to open my name for players on those realms, I'll not be eligible to play on - that would be the US servers, since I'm in Europe)
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
It was never your name, and yours alone to begin with though - and you will get the name you so dearly want after the lockout period. Who ever this person was, who chose the name has every right to it as well.
You calling out people as "trolls" quite clearly prove my point above.
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
Sure there are probably some cases where that happened. I know I thought I had successfully reserved my name at one point only to find out it hadn't actually done it. But it's not actually fair to people who did get their names. You can say they only got them because the system messed up, but who's to say if everyone had been able to log-in right away and save with no issues those people wouldn't have still gotten the names? Some of those people surly got the names because they kept at it longer, which can be seen as they put in more effort.
 
Like I said, it does suck when you think you got your name only to find out you didn't. But what your proposing isn't anymore fair than what happened. The system was broken and because the system was broken across the board everyone did have the same chance at reserving their names. It's not like the system said only people with account names starting with "h" can get through. Scrapping it all seems attractive (especially to people who didn't get their names) but it really isn't fair either.
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
No I wont, people have explicitly stated that they will not let me have my name, period.
 
It's a name that belongs to a persona. this "you don't own the name" excuse is nothing more than an excuse. It's similar to brand association.
Your shallow understanding doesn't negate the importance of what a name stands for.
It was a clear cut example of abuse and harassment.
 
Enough said.
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
But someone might have felt the same way about the name when they took it for their own persona/toon/avatar.
----
			
I really like how u guy's work!
Thank's for the little glimpse off the stage. I think everyone appreciate the transparency.
 
 :D	
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
It IS fair.  Ok if a group of folks entered a race and the race started and the leaders finished the race and are resting and then the race judges say "Opps everyone needs to run an extra lap with the timer never having stopped."  How would that be fair to the people who already finished?  They would have been lapped and have to restart the process.  Yes it would really affect the folks that were still running but it would not be to the rest.  You would scrap the race and start over or just nullify the whole thing.  You would not say "Well we have to keep the results because it would be unfair to the poeple who won because we made a mistake."  Its silly.  Also as I said before you would have a better chance, eceryone would.  playernames/globalname slots versus playernames/gameservers.  Come on guys this is simple and easy to understand. 
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
No. No one does.
The name itself was never used before I created it, there were several off site posts explicitly denoting that people were going to try to take it from me.
 
If you google franbunnyffxii you find nothing associated expect for me and my "paper trail." No one identifies with this name, the hijacking of my name was infact, an effort to harass and abuse me.
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
Well you can always use the name 14 days after launch.
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
What the hell is it with you people? Don't any of you read?
"No I wont, people have explicitly stated that they will not let me have my name, period."
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
No. No one does.
The name itself was never used before I created it, there were several off site posts explicitly denoting that people were going to try to take it from me.
 
If you google franbunnyffxii you find nothing associated expect for me and my "paper trail." No one identifies with this name, the hijacking of my name was infact, an effort to harass and abuse me.
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
Well you can always use the name 14 days after launch.
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
LOL, if you think there is an army of people frothing at the mouth waiting for the servers to go live just to take your than name you are the most paranoid person I have ever met.  Or you have managed to *cupcake* a lot of people off.
 
If it's the latter, maybe you should re-evaluate how you act online.
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
Oh yes, the free name change "credit" that made a ton of logical sense. I saw that feedback come in after this article was off to localization. 
 
The Name Change system (backend, you've seen the front end roughed in) isn't complete, is over scope, over budget, and coming in extremely hot, and we didn't think we could actually deliver on a "free time-limited" name change. We did talk about it, but threw it out with our lack of confidence in delivering. The last thing we needed was to make a promise that we couldn't deliver on after an already crappy situation. 
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
After losing my name after spending 6 hours hitting f5 and watching ?? I feel a couple of boomboxes insulting.
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
It IS fair.  Ok if a group of folks entered a race and the race started and the leaders finished the race and are resting and then the race judges say "Opps everyone needs to run an extra lap with the timer never having stopped."  How would that be fair to the people who already finished?  They would have been lapped and have to restart the process.  Yes it would really affect the folks that were still running but it would not be to the rest.  You would scrap the race and start over or just nullify the whole thing.  You would not say "Well we have to keep the results because it would be unfair to the poeple who won because we made a mistake."  Its silly.  Also as I said before you would have a better chance, eceryone would.  playernames/globalname slots versus playernames/gameservers.  Come on guys this is simple and easy to understand. 
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
What the hell is it with you people? Don't any of you read?
"No I wont, people have explicitly stated that they will not let me have my name, period."
People have stated they are going to take it on any server they can, use it for bank alts, or whatever they can to keep it away from me.
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
Oh yes, the free name change "credit" that made a ton of logical sense. I saw that feedback come in after this article was off to localization. 
 
The Name Change system (backend, you've seen the front end roughed in) isn't complete, is over scope, over budget, and coming in extremely hot, and we didn't think we could actually deliver on a "free time-limited" name change. We did talk about it, but threw it out with our lack of confidence in delivering. The last thing we needed was to make a promise that we couldn't deliver on after an already crappy situation. 
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
I think the one unanswered question that I cannot answer is, why we chose to do global name reservations? And the answer is that I don’t know at this time. Even though I had the information for Gaff’s AMA, I only know why we didn’t do realm specific names.
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
I am pretty sure that if there's nothing but lowlevel characters locking up the name on various servers, it is a clear cut harassment case, but I'll let time tell if this is truely what will actually happen - if someone is so deadset on being out to get you as to get a warning on their account and a forced name change.
 
Also there will be more servers eventually, you will be able to lock the name down.
 
Btw. do anyone know if the name reserve is for the full duration period, no matter what or if the name is unlocked once used on a specific server?
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
No, it's because everyone wants to make a statement and feel important or clever.
There is no excuse for harassment.
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
Btw. do anyone know if the name reserve is for the full duration period, no matter what or if the name is unlocked once used on a specific server?
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
LOL, if you think there is an army of people frothing at the mouth waiting for the servers to go live just to take your than name you are the most paranoid person I have ever met.  Or you have managed to *cupcake* a lot of people off.
 
If it's the latter, maybe you should re-evaluate how you act online because no one mysteriously becomes a target like that without causing some kind of trouble for themselves.
----
			
well I did get through on the name reserve about 15 mins after it went live, and got the two names I wanted for different accounts. - Next day I check, and it hadnt registered the reservation, even though the 1 hour counter had started before my very eyes the night before.
 
So I redid the name reservations the next day, and this time it took.
 
I got lucky, my names were not taken which honestly was pretty amazing since they are both awesome. - But even if they hadnt been available I had backups. I never felt entitled to the names, or my right to them. I allways felt that nomatter how fast I might be someone could be faster.
 
You are never garanteed a name, nomatter how entitled you feel to it, even if you spent years with that name for your avatar in another game. It does not belong to you. - There is no way to police a system where anyone can challenge anothers "right" to a toon name. It is completely unmanageable. 
 
As someone who had to redo my reservation more than 24 hours after it went live, and ended up happy with the names I got, I would be seriously annoyed if it was all scrapped and I had to redo the process. Why? Because I already spent aproximate 1.5 days preoccupied by the buisness of name reserve for a game! - I dont want to do that again. Time shouldnt be wasted on non-issues.	
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
"Everyone"?  So now everyone is against you?  You know, I've come across your posts quite a bit since closed beta and the one thing that always struck me was that you seemed to crave attention.  Well, now you got it.  Just not the kind that you wanted.
----
			
I had a whole response typed up, but it was just lost because my session had timed out... Perhaps this is something that can also be fixed soon? If a session has ended, the site should not allow me to believe I am still logged in (i.e. show me as logged in and present me with the reply form)
/rant
 
Sooo. I will just say this... one single asset was13MB? WTF?! Everyone in the office laughed when I told them that. This should be in Web dev 101. Keep the site assets light and few in number.
 
[update] I do want to say thanks for the post mortem. Very interesting read and also good to know that this was an independent system. But what was the noise about the SSO?	
----
			I swear to god I'll pistol whip the next guy that says transparency!https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFZG8KQJni8	
----
			
The truth is because this is a subscription-based game (at this point) and not a microtransaction game the boomboxes they're "appeasing" us with are technically not worth any REAL WORLD money. They're giving us something that costs them nothing, whereas a name change, which is a basic function of most subscription-based MMOs is worth real world money.
 
If a free name change isn't possible then the only other fair thing to do is wipe the whole process and let us reserve names like every other mmo when we log in on headstart. Otherwise I don't put much stock into anything you have to say.	
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
"Everyone"?  So now everyone is against you?  You know, I've come across your posts quite a bit since closed beta and the one thing that always struck me was that you seemed to crave attention.  Well, now you got it.  Just not the kind that you wanted.
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
Another cop out.
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
I swear to god I'll pistol whip the next guy that says transparency!
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFZG8KQJni8
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
The truth is because this is a subscription-based game (at this point) and not a microtransaction game the boomboxes they're "appeasing" us with are technically not worth any REAL WORLD money. They're giving us something that costs them nothing, whereas a name change, which is a basic function of most subscription-based MMOs is worth real world money.
 
If a free name change isn't possible then the only other fair thing to do is wipe the whole process and let us reserve names like every other mmo when we log in on headstart. Otherwise I don't put much stock into anything you have to say.
----
			
Fran,
 
Some people are trying to be helpful, or at least friendly and consoling. I understand that it may not be what you need at the moment, but lashing out at everyone here isn't going to fix anything. It's just going to alienate people who are trying to be nice to you.
 
From me personally, I say that sucks and I hope you find a name you can grow to be happy with.
 
Cheers.
 
-KBT	
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
I swear to god I'll pistol whip the next guy that says transparency!
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFZG8KQJni8
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
Some people were trolled and had their names and guild names stolen.
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
Fran,
 
Some people are trying to be helpful, or at least friendly and consoling. I understand that it may not be what you need at the moment, but lashing out at everyone here isn't going to fix anything. It's just going to alienate people who are trying to be nice to you.
 
From me personally, I say that sucks and I hope you find a name you can grow to be happy with.
 
Cheers.
 
-KBT
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
Have you plead your case to support about this?
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
Yes.
Response I got was probably a mass response sent out to everyone.
 
Matt (WildStar Player Support)
 
May 16 18:01
 
Hello Franbunny,
 
At this time, we cannot grant you a name that is now showing as taken. For what it's worth, the developers have issued a public apology and pre-ordering customers will receive some compensation. More information can be found at the following link. I know that the words of a rank and file support agent are weak and fruitless compared to the frustration you went through, but I just want you to know that I'm really sorry for what happened.
 
https://forums.wildstar-online.com/forums/index.php?/topic/46736-an-apology-from-the-devs/
 
Please let me know if you have any other questions.
 
Regards,
 
Matt
WildStar Support Team
----
			
Franbunny.....at this point what do you want?  TBH you're just making it worse since the trolls are going to come out of the woodwork now especially with posts like "being the face of the Amazon class in Prius online."  
 
I almost spit my coffee out reading that. 	
----
			
you guys... are fantastic.. this post made me log in and reply (first post) after being here for months now...!! keep on!
 
/pinky	
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
Throwing the words "attention" everywhere without looking at yourself is nothing more than hypocracy.
The simple fact that you're here posting on a forum denotes that you're looking for attention of some sort. Forums do not work without people wanting and giving attention. Be it serious uses, personal musings, or whatever people are interested in.
You make a thread you want someone to respond, that's attention seeking.
 
You are completely and utterly disreguarding anything I'm saying to throw your ego in front.
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
Franbunny.....at this point what do you want?  TBH you're just making it worse since the trolls are going to come out of the woodwork now especially with posts like "being the face of the Amazon class in Prius online."  
 
I almost spit my coffee out reading that. 
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
Franbunny.....at this point what do you want?  TBH you're just making it worse since the trolls are going to come out of the woodwork now especially with posts like "being the face of the Amazon class in Prius online."  
 
I almost spit my coffee out reading that.
----
			You should still scrap this system. Even after you admit to 'non-human traffic'. People clearly gained some names under bad circumstance and its unfair to those who actually spammed the f5 key. I got my name, But I know countless others who were not so lucky. 	
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
Oh good, more terrible analogies.  Let me answer with a hypothetical:
 
Suppose launch has similar issues that make it "unfair" as to who gets to log in and create characters.  Suppose we have not just login queues, but realm crashes, random client disconnects, a bug that doesn't allow names starting with 'L', and/or authentication failures.  Do we have to have a reset and do-over then as well?
 
I don't disagree that global reservations are less-than-optimal.  The best way would have been for us to select a server type, and reserve the names on just servers of that type in our region.  But woulda, coulda, shoulda...
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
https://www.google.com/search?q=prius+amazon&sourceid=ie7&rls=com.microsoft:en-US:IE-Address&ie=&oe=#q=prius+amazon&rls=com.microsoft:en-US:IE-Address&tbm=vid
 
Like or not, it's the truth :/
 
What do I want? My name back for my main character.
Nothing more nothing less.
----
			
I think you guys made only one terrible, tragic mistakes when it comes to names and it has nothing to do with the website. You made the mistake of allowing only one name for a character. So many people want to be Alissa, or Sophia or Clarice or Debbie, or whatever. You allow second names and everyone will have no trouble finding a first and second name combination that fits and pleases them. Singular name systems are so outdated, so 2005, I can't understand why you chose such an archaic system. Now there is only one Sophia and all the other Sophia's out there are out of luck and have to suck up picking another name. 
 
After Guild Wars 2, Neverwinter, Final Fantasy 14 and Elder Scrolls Online all came with 2 name systems, I had really thought single name systems where now indefinitely a thing of the past, buried together with many other dumb ideas from those old times. But alas you had to bring back the single name system, to prove to all of us once again why most modern games chose got rid of it. If you had too then a website crashing wouldn't have been a problem as almost everyone would still be able to pick the names they wanted. 	
----
			Would it be too much to ask for one free name change per pre-order? I don't want to wait 2 weeks after launch for the name lock out to expire to make the character I plan on maining....Yes, a name means that much to me, and to many others.	
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
I think you guys made only one terrible, tragic mistakes when it comes to names and it has nothing to do with the website. You made the mistake of allowing only one name for a character. So many people want to be Alissa, or Sophia or Clarice or Debbie, or whatever. You allow second names and everyone will have no trouble finding a first and second name combination that fits and pleases them. Singular name systems are so outdated, so 2005, I can't understand why you chose such an archaic system. Now there is only one Sophia and all the other Sophia's out there are out of luck and have to suck up picking another name. 
 
----
			
This post-portem exemplifies one of the reasons I love Carbine as a developer.
 
I've been playing MMOs for more than half my life (thirteen years now!), and I've never seen a developer that's upfront with things like Carbine is.
 
It's the sort of thing that MMO players have been begging for for years.
 
If something is going wrong, don't treat us like we're stupid. Don't ignore us. Just tell us what's happening. It'll be okay. We'll be fine. We just don't want to be confused and in the dark.	
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
After Guild Wars 2, Neverwinter, Final Fantasy 14 and Elder Scrolls Online all came with 2 name systems, I had really thought single name systems where now indefinitely a thing of the past, buried together with many other dumb ideas from those old times. But alas you had to bring back the single name system, to prove to all of us once again why most modern games chose got rid of it. If you had too then a website crashing wouldn't have been a problem as almost everyone would still be able to pick the names they wanted. 
----
			
Amazing.  The amount of detail in this is seriously awesome Cougar and Carbine.  I never expected this much transparency, and it's a serious breath of fresh air.  Please, never change.  I love your company now, and I never want to give you up.
 
(I don't ever want to turn around and desert you)
 
(just don't ever make me cry)
 
(and I'll never say goodbye)	
----
			
Thanks Cougar and Carbine, again you have shown something truly impressive to us.  Having been in the industry for longer than I care to admit, and being a hardcore gamer since the release of Wofenstein 3d waaayyyy back in time, I can honestly say I've never seen a company where the team is as active in the community and open about everything.  The game looks great, its fun, we love it, but knowing how much the Carbine team cares about the game means even more.
 
Thanks for being you!!	
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
https://www.google.com/search?q=prius+amazon&sourceid=ie7&rls=com.microsoft:en-US:IE-Address&ie=&oe=#q=prius+amazon&rls=com.microsoft:en-US:IE-Address&tbm=vid
 
Like or not, it's the truth :/
 
What do I want? My name back for my main character.
Nothing more nothing less.
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
Would it be too much to ask for one free name change per pre-order? I don't want to wait 2 weeks after launch for the name lock out to expire to make the character I plan on maining....Yes, a name means that much to me, and to many others.
----
			Thanks for the explanation on what went on behind the scenes. I've come to terms with the results of it all, and made do. Thanks for thinking of everyone, my only complaint/suggestion is as others have said, could there be some sort of communications hub? A lot of us don't use twitter, reddit, facebook, or god knows what other social media there is. Yes, I do still go to those sites to pick out information but sometimes the forums are where we look first. I don't go to yahoo to check my gmail. Could there be an external page, with all the different feeds on it somehow? And link it with the dev tracker? This way, it'd still be there for panic button moments where everyone can access it, but we can also access all the information needed should we be on your forums, with the community. Sorry if that is too much to ask.	
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
I think you guys made only one terrible, tragic mistakes when it comes to names and it has nothing to do with the website. You made the mistake of allowing only one name for a character. So many people want to be Alissa, or Sophia or Clarice or Debbie, or whatever. You allow second names and everyone will have no trouble finding a first and second name combination that fits and pleases them. Singular name systems are so outdated, so 2005, I can't understand why you chose such an archaic system. Now there is only one Sophia and all the other Sophia's out there are out of luck and have to suck up picking another name. 
 
After Guild Wars 2, Neverwinter, Final Fantasy 14 and Elder Scrolls Online all came with 2 name systems, I had really thought single name systems where now indefinitely a thing of the past, buried together with many other dumb ideas from those old times. But alas you had to bring back the single name system, to prove to all of us once again why most modern games chose got rid of it. If you had too then a website crashing wouldn't have been a problem as almost everyone would still be able to pick the names they wanted. 
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
The problem with that is it waters down your in game persona. In the case of Franbunny you'd have trolls using the first name with multiple last names. 
 
So if you want to be Sophia and you name your toon Sophia Frost and there's another Spellslinger named Sophia Frosty on the same server it gets very confusing.
----
			
Just really bothers me that the name Roxie I used from early alpha got taken GLOBALLY.  I got in as soon as the page came up, had  my name and guild name locked in with the edit timer running.  Surprise Surprise lost my name because you guys reset it without any warning it would wipe the names on timer.  
 
They could have at least given us last names like ESO that way we could have all had the first name we wanted.	
----
			
I got my name, obviously you guys just aren't hardcore enough.  Hardcore.
 
On-Topic: Thanks Cougar, you guys rock my socks.  Hardcore.	
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
I never expected this much transparency, and it's a serious breath of fresh air.
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
I think the majority would be content at watered down names over not getting them. Besides, the Cryptic method still gives you an unique personae with the @handle system.
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
I think most players wouldn't want others to have basically the same name. I also think it's overstated that all the "good" names will be gone.
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
https://www.google.com/search?q=prius+amazon&sourceid=ie7&rls=com.microsoft:en-US:IE-Address&ie=&oe=#q=prius+amazon&rls=com.microsoft:en-US:IE-Address&tbm=vid
 
Like or not, it's the truth :/
 
What do I want? My name back for my main character.
Nothing more nothing less.
----
			I enjoyed this post. Personally NameGate as it is being so fondly called didn't effect me and I didn't think it was a very big deal but that's just me.Having said that, I really like how you gave us all this behind the curtain information. In a different setting this could have been the plot for a movie.May I request an in game adventure based on this experience?	
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
In a different setting this could have been the plot for a movie.
 
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
I really don't think so. People can't stand Cryptic for whatever reason but you never hear complaints about how they resolved naming issues.
 
And you rarely meet others with the same name unless someone is trying to use the same name. It's a fear that hasn't manifested in their games.
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
I really don't think so. People can't stand Cryptic for whatever reason but you never hear complaints about how they resolved naming issues.
 
And you rarely meet others with the same name unless someone is trying to use the same name. It's a fear that hasn't manifested in their games.
----
			Thank you for just a detailed explaination. I found it interesting to see the behind the scenes triage that takes place. People don't think about all the factors that go into getting a game out and want an instantaneous answer to issues that arise. The steps you took to root it out and fix it was great. Keep up the great work hope launch day goes smoothly as possible and this game is a huge success for all you hard working developers :) I know I got frustrated in some of my bug reports and I apologize.	
----
			Thank you for this information.	
----
			In my unprofessional opinion having a global name reservation is a mistake. There will be far too many people playing this game. At least make guild name by server. If you type in a guild in WoW armory, you will many guilds with the same name on different servers. I don't know how many pre-orders Wildstar had, but I'm anticipating a few million people at launch. 	
----
			
No reason to divulge all that happened. It happened.
It is over and there is no real resolution to what happened.
The only solution is waiting for those that were unable to get a name they truly wanted.
Best to hope for those is the player that has the name they wanted, is they log in before them. Pick a server other then the other and maybe gain access to the name on a different server.
 
All this said I do blame NCSoft more then Carbine because this is an account issue not a game issue.	
----
			
First, good work getting it straightened out.
Second, nice sugar coating. I am sure there were some tempers breaking lose. But hey, happens to everyone, especially those who take their work and their customers seriously.
Third, let me go back to point one, good work getting it straightened out. I don't ask the plumber what it is they pulled out of the toilet, just tell me generally what you did.   :P
As Tenacious D so eloquently put it, "That's ******* Teamwork!"	
----
			
Can only repeat what most other people said: Very nice and informative post. I hope the poor souls who are still suffering eventually get that free name change when the feature is ready.
 
{| class="blockquote"
I got there before the trolls got the idea
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
Well, I do think they should have done server reservations, just because global simple equates to TONS more names being taken up by launch than needed, hands down. I think with that in place, we could have reserved 2 or maybe even 3 names for people who werent sure just what server they'd be playing on or various long-term names (Like I use Sikare, Sikari and Lokowi). As it stands, however many servers we plan on having across the globe, its eating up names that many times faster, and waiting because half the good names are taken to make your main is just a huge pain in the ass for everyone involved. So that's just my 2 cents.
 
What should have happened (IMO):
- Realm based.
- 2-3 reserve-able names, could be on various servers to reserve the same name.
- Better stress testing prior.
 
But really, if names were server based, people wouldn't have complained as much because the odds that their names were available SOMEWHERE would have multiplied. Sort of feel like this wasn't thought out well enough, the cautionary posts and warnings were there... Sucks it couldn't have turned out better.
----
			I'm still sad that we lost our guild name...hopefully it wasn't a troll :(	
----
			
Sorry if that has been asked already.
Is there an official statement how the reservation is going to be handled?
Like is the name reserved for the whole 14 days or just until the the player who reserved the name created his character?	
----
			Hey, you guys tried to do a cool thing that others don't.  Honestly, it was quite entertaining :P	
----
			I think a lot of people have a problem with how you handled the name reservation before shit hit the fan. There were quite a few multi-page threads with tons of questions and uncertainties and criticism which were all ignored. The promised FAQ wasn't posted before the reservation started. Not even the starting time (one of the main questions in the threads!) was communicated with sufficient advance notice. You had people staying awake on Monday evening because they were still unsure whether reservation would start at midnight (you have global player base!). No wonder Tony Rey's tweet ("We will be letting everyone know with plenty of advance the time it goes live tomorrow so you can set your alarms etc.") was perceived as condescending. You have a global player base, some people work shifts and double shifts. 18 hours ahead isn't "plenty of advance" by a long shot. Three days would have been. It's that ignorance and attitude that made the fiasco so much more bitter.	
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
Sorry if that has been asked already.
Is there an official statement how the reservation is going to be handled?
Like is the name reserved for the whole 14 days or just until the the player who reserved the name created his character?
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
The problem with that is it waters down your in game persona.  In the case of Franbunny you'd have trolls using the first name with multiple last names.  
 
So if you want to be Sophia and you name your toon Sophia Frost and there's another Spellslinger named Sophia Frosty on the same server it gets very confusing.
----
			I would love an answer to this... Why have 5 (now 6) different customer service reps tell me they have made it so my name will be unlocked the next time I log in so I can try reserving my 1st choice.. but it never unlocks.. I have tried different browsers.. different computers.. (went to a lan-center and tried 5 different ones).. They all tell me I will get time next time I log in.. but It never does.. If anyone can help me id appreciate it.. but it is beyond frustrating to get my hopes up time after time.. only to have then dashed with that Editable: Name can no longer be editable message. I want to believe in Carbine and NC Soft.. but this is a very basic thing..	
----
			
Love you devs, keep up the hard work.
 	
----
			
Any word on when a name change feature will be implemented?  I made a real bone-headed choice with the name I reserved due to the panic of the one-hour window and when my first two choices were already taken, instead of going with my third option, I went with option DERRRP.
 
Now, I figure that third option might be reserved by the time launch rolls around, but I'm guessing hopefully 2 of those 3 will open up after the two week reserve has expired (I doubt those names would be used on ALL servers).  I don't want to wait two weeks post launch to start playing, but I'm really limiting my name options unless I do wait.	
----
			
Glad to see a nice postmortem.
 
Still not happy with the response but it's pretty clear that the solution I'm advocating (scrapping and redoing name reservations) is not going to happen.
 
Thanks for the run down of what happened; just try to make it a little quicker next time?	
----
			will say yes i was frustrated with how the reservation went, But its nothing that got me bent out of shape, i had already planned way ahead by like 10 mans because i knew which is usual about 99% of the time that my first few choices wouldn't be available. Still look forward to the launch of WS. Hype mode activated	
----
			
I, along with many others, appreciate this post mortem. Thank you.
 
But, I, along with many others, wonder if there is any hope to get back the names that we reserved and then lost? Or cut down the 14 day exlusivity window to lower than 3, so we have a chance to regain them during the headstart?	
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
That's actually not true. I followed the threads (on a different site) where "the plan" was hatched, and it was actually in the working since... I think before reservation was even announced. As many people from this forum have also pointed out, you had been at extreme risk of this happening for a long time. Sure it sucks for you, but it could just as well have happened if everything had worked flawlessly. It might even have been more than one person, lessening your own chances of success further.
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
What if your in-game persona has a first and last name, like "Peter Parker" or "Peter Dinklage". How does having a last name water down the name "Peter"? If anything, it can give the character more personality.  For that matter, how does not having a space make SophiaFrost and SophiaFrosty less confusing?
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
Self proclaimed beast of some random game no one's heard of.  Someone get Carbine on the horn!  We need to turn this name reservation thing on it's head and screw over the most likely hundreds of thousands of happy customers the system has worked for and screw them out of their names so the minority can feel justice was served!  JUSTICE SHALL PREVAIL!
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
Last names aren't an issue if the system is built with that in mind like FF XIV and TSW.  It's another thing entirely when the game is built around a single name.  In that case spaces are no better than using umlauts or accents in your name IMO.  
 
I'm totally fine with first and last names in MMO's.  I'm not fine with allowing spaces in games with single word names so someone can pretend they got a name already in use.
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
It would be one thing if her name was something like "Bunny" or "Fran", or other name that could conceivably be taken by another person, but someone took the name "FranBunnyFFXII" with the sole purpose of bullying her. There should be some recourse to deal with this kind of thing, because bullying should never be tolerated. It's not an issue of scrapping the Name Reservation system or making exceptions to the rules for one person. It's an issue of being able to deal with people who violate the very first rule of conduct.  The very fact that people are treating this like "you don't own that name" or "there's no way to prove someone took the name to spite you" or "stop whining" or "you deserved it" or "we're not changing everything for you" is just tacit support for bullying. It's not an issue with Name Reservation, it's an issue with the community.
----
			If X has X name on the forums, wants to have X, and X is being a very annoying person and starting trouble with everyone else, eventually everyone else will find a way to get back at X.	
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
If X has X name on the forums, wants to have X, and X is being a very annoying person and starting trouble with everyone else, eventually everyone else will find a way to get back at X.
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
I'm exactly the opposite. I'm in favor of spaces but against last names. With spaces, the player has a choice of what to name their character. You can have both "Han Solo" and "Chewbacca". With forced last names, you can have "Han Solo" but no "Chewbacca". It's not an issue of "pretending they got a name already in use". It's an issue of "some people want a last name and some people don't". Besides, if someone took the name "Sophia" for example,  what's wrong with someone using "Sophia Frost" or "Sophia Starfury". Personally, I think names like that are better than hitting a random name generator in order to come up with names that aren't taken. or settling for names like Sofia, Sofeeya, Sohfia, Sewfeeya, Soophia, Sophiaa because you want to keep the name as close to Sophia as possible. 
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
Maybe this is a bit overkill for the average player, but (as with so many other things) I love how Secret World did it. You are forced to use a first and last name, but neither has to be unique. Then you also have a nickname/call sign. Only that one has to be unique. Gives lots of options for what people want to be called while still not allowing for mix-ups.
----
			
I consider myself lucky.
 
I have some sort of a nickname I've used for more than 20 years. For my true self, and not for some in game character, either tabletop or live action role playing game or video game. It is also so unusual there is literally 1 chance of 10 billions somebody would ever use the same except to *cupcake* me off. Which wouldn't as I don't use it since a few years already. Getting old I guess.
 
Also, I've never used the same name twice for my characters. Not even for banker characters. Ewilan is the name of my very first character in WoW, a character I played many, many years. I use it as a login on a few gaming oriented sites, for various reasons: I like that name - a real French name of celtic origins -, it's the name of a novel main character I actually really liked - Les Mondes d'Ewilan -, and I have some fond memories of my WoW Ewilan. I'll never use that name again for any character ever. There is another handle I use on some other gaming oriented sites, Darkaline. Another character I loved and played for years, and another name I'll never use again in game. I'm more likely to reuse names of minor characters I didn't played much, but even then, I prefer to find new ones.
 
And so my medic will be called Biologic. And  I already have a fine list of names for more characters. Hopefully some will be available.
 
And if somebody find amusing or pleasant to use Ewilan or Darkaline, go for it. :)
 
 
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The problem with that is that people are throwing out excuses and thing's that I've already heard more and more, and it's doing nothing but upsetting me more.People aren't trying to understand, if they're trying to help, they're just making things worse.It's best to just leave things alone or ask questions to understand the issue.Sometimes trying to help, only makes things worse.
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Maybe this is a bit overkill for the average player, but (as with so many other things) I love how Secret World did it. You are forced to use a first and last name, but neither has to be unique. Then you also have a nickname/call sign. Only that one has to be unique. Gives lots of options for what people want to be called while still not allowing for mix-ups.
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Maybe this is a bit overkill for the average player, but (as with so many other things) I love how Secret World did it. You are forced to use a first and last name, but neither has to be unique. Then you also have a nickname/call sign. Only that one has to be unique. Gives lots of options for what people want to be called while still not allowing for mix-ups.
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Then you have people complaining that they didn't get their unique call sign. 
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No one is bullying her; someone wanted the name FranBunnyXIV so they reserved it. I'm sorry that Fran wanted a popular name.
 
 
 
Your opinion, I like it.
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Dude, just do what EVE does with their names.
 
First name and last name. Last name is optional. Both your first and last name may have up to one space in it. Apostrophes are also permitted, but I believe that's the extent of punctuation allowed.
 
Yes, this allows you to spell out four word phrases, I'd be lying if I said I didn't have an alt named "Jita Local Chat", Jita being the biggest trade (and scam) hub in the game. It also allows you to have quick'n'easy one word names. It also allows things like "X von Y" if you want to pretend you're German (von is German, right?) too.
 
Not that hard.	
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HAHAHAHAHA the notion that "FranBunnyFFXII" is a popular name is rich. It's a terrible name. Everybody on the planet, except this one person here on this thread would agree. There could only ever be one person who would actually want to name a character that. The forum go-er here got trolled. That's really all there is to it. 
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I think Jhark's post was meant to be taken as sarcasm.
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Dude, just do what EVE does with their names.
 
First name and last name. Last name is optional. Both your first and last name may have up to one space in it. Apostrophes are also permitted, but I believe that's the extent of punctuation allowed.
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I think Jhark's post was meant to be taken as sarcasm.
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Sorry if this has been asked already, but there are a ton of posts to go through, here.
 
How do you know if your name was saved?  Because I have no clue if mine was, and am still unsure on how to check.	
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Did she really want FranBunnyFFXII or is that just her forum name?  I assumed she wanted FranBunny.
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Sorry if this has been asked already, but there are a ton of posts to go through, here.
 
How do you know if your name was saved?  Because I have no clue if mine was, and am still unsure on how to check.
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			Yep.  Was originally told it was saved.  Not anymore....	
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I think the one unanswered question that I cannot answer is, why we chose to do global name reservations? And the answer is that I don’t know at this time. 
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			I tried to find something official, but was unable to. Can someone fill me in on what the deal with the 14 day rename token is? Are names automatically unlocked after 14 days from most servers or something? The Devs sure do a great job explaining where they messed up, but they aren't very good at coming up with good design ideas. Isn't it particularly odd that the makers of such a fantastic game were able to cause so many people to be disappointed by making global name reservations because some guy was on vacation that they'd known about for over a year, yet couldn't anticipate making a fix for ahead of time. Anyways....I digress.	
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			Great post, I love to read these and see what exactly was going on. Thanks for the transparency, cant wait for launch :D	
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I tried to find something official, but was unable to. Can someone fill me in on what the deal with the 14 day rename token is? Are names automatically unlocked after 14 days from most servers or something? The Devs sure do a great job explaining where they messed up, but they aren't very good at coming up with good design ideas. Isn't it particularly odd that the makers of such a fantastic game were able to cause so many people to be disappointed by making global name reservations because some guy was on vacation that they'd known about for over a year, yet couldn't anticipate making a fix for ahead of time. Anyways....I digress.
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			Are people seriously still worked up about this? I kinda forgot all about it really.	
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