I’m going to point out what’s wrong, what’s right, and all that stuff. My post isn’t meant to insult or offend you; it’s just to get straight to the point of what you’re saying.
First of all, it doesn’t matter if you’re a longtime, well-known player or a brand-new one. Everyone is able to share their frustrations and feedback. The duration of how long someone has played the game has no impact on the thread itself. All feedback is valuable if it’s provided correctly.
Regarding surnames or titles, the only feasible way I could see that working is through a system similar to our current titles—perhaps a family name system that’s optional. If you enable it, people who also have it enabled can see it. Most people on RP servers already use specific RP add-ons where they have profiles with their character’s last name and backstory. So, for immersion purposes, RP servers are pretty much taken care of by third-party tools.
When it comes to name availability, the game doesn’t have millions of active players globally—I imagine it’s just over a million. The issue is the vast number of accounts where characters still hold those names, as those players might return someday. I do remember Blizzard added a system where if a character is offline for a very long time, the name becomes available again. This is an improvement over the old system, which required manually contacting Blizzard and had strict level requirements. So, honestly, I wouldn’t put much faith in name availability changing significantly in the future.
Your first suggestion—allowing a space for a surname—I think would actually be worse, and I’ll explain why. A vast majority of the player base isn’t the most mature bunch, and they’ll take any opportunity for innuendo. We already see this with normal names; a surname system would exacerbate that desire to be silly. Furthermore, how would you easily type out someone’s full name if it uses multiple variations of letters from different languages? It becomes more of a pain for players than a worthwhile feature.
I haven’t played Final Fantasy or Lord of the Rings Online in so long that I don’t know the system you’re referring to. But if it works there, it would have to be implemented very carefully. This is where it bleeds into your third point: the RP add-ons the community has created are already far superior for this specific purpose than anything Blizzard would likely ever build. Players can go crazy with backstories and names using those tools.
I’m not saying the naming system will never evolve. Blizzard has revisited many systems over the years. I just don’t think this is one they will prioritize because it’s a niche request on a global scale. It’s primarily seen on RP servers, and even there, many players don’t use the add-ons and are accustomed to the current system.
If they were to add a new naming system, they would have to provide every player with a free name change. Would they do that for every character on an account? Probably not. This would likely generate a flood of customer support tickets from people who used the change incorrectly and immediately regretted it.
You have to look at it from that outside perspective. I understand your feedback, and there’s no harm in providing it. You just have to be ready for people to point out the possible problems that could occur.
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