Naturally, this tread is the product of personal frustration.
Not only with resorting to spell a character’s name in ways I did not intend - as it is currently “reserved” by a character so old that its Armory page hasn’t even updated with a BfA page - but frustration with concise information on the policy being somewhat scarce.
The following is what might be found when perusing the topic ingame:
So far so good, but when you follow the linked support article, this is the topic you’re taken to:
Houston we have a problem.
A bit of digging about on old threads and (shudder) reddit, gave me the following impression.
Some names are reserved if either they resemble lore characters, and are thus permanently unavailable.
Otherwise available names will be reserved if a character claims it, and the WoW account has any activity in a span of 2 years. This includes logging in on a level 1 alt during periods without an active subscription - thus practically allowing a player to permanently hoard a name despite not using it ingame.
At what character level a name is locked-in to an account is unclear after the level squish.
Clarification or contemporary support articles would be appreciated and, perhaps, some input on thow this policy might be improved. My personal thoughts probably shine through fairly well.
To answer one of your questions: There is no level requirement for reserving a name. You can make a lvl 1 char and never log in on it, the name is still reserved as long as your account has been active in the past few years - I believe it’s within the latest 2 expansions, actually.
It’s frustrating when you can’t find what you feel is a good name for your characters, but believe me, there are names to be had, even on the biggest servers - also without ever resorting to weird wovel-accents and special characters.
I’m one of those who has fun playing around with it now and then, and you can get surprised at what you can find if you spend a bit of time trying.
I lost the name Brooke on Draenor because I forgot to create a place holder, I save my rarer names on level 1 alts all the time because who knows what server I’ll be on in the future.
IMO instead of trying to take names from other people you should try and create something of your own.
Incorrect. It isn’t two years, it’s the span of the past two expansions. Given the current rate of content being released, all I can do is wish you best of luck playing the waiting game.
As Ke said above me, you can save a name on a level one alt and leave it there. Names are also reserved to your account if you delete a character of a suitably high level however - I think it’s 90 days.
As in if I deleted Caaro right now, no one else could take the name on Argent Dawn until 90 days had passed.
I found an older link to Inactive Names and it also leads to that hacked account page. I’m not sure what they’ve done, the Inactive Names FAQ is totally missing at present.
Definitely something gone wrong somewhere.
The old FAQ used to say
World of Warcraft
Character names on accounts that have been inactive for the past two expansions automatically become eligible to be used by other characters. We do not assist with releasing character names manually.
World of Warcraft Classic
We do not release character names for World of Warcraft Classic characters.
As far as I am aware, an inactive account is determined by whether or not the attached bnet has a subscription somewhere on it. It’s the same for the forums. As long as one of your up to eight wow accounts attached to that Bnet has a sub then you can post on the forums.
I am not aware of any logging in trick but I’ve never tried to keep hold of names on an inactive account.
So in essence the wait for a name is around 4 to 5 years, assuming the player doesn’t log in at any point on any character on their account. Goodness.
Sure, but I’m partial to human characters having human sounding names. So when it’s a High Population realm and people’s names are kept reserved for half a decade after they leave, the pickings are somewhat slim.
Further highlighting how appreciated a contemporary support page on names would be. A bit of a FAQ would go a long way to stave off my personal frustration, at least.
