That name is already taken

Kaitona

Why are character names reserved in ESO? Why can't two players on the PS4 US server have the name Dave? All anyone sees is the account name, so why is there a limitation on names? Doesn't make any sense to me.

Skwor

Seriously you do not understand whey everyone needs a unique name? Just as some kind of character in the name you want or us a sir name as part of your name.

ArgonianAssassin

Skwor wrote: »

Seriously you do not understand whey everyone needs a unique name? Just as some kind of character in the name you want or us a sir name as part of your name.

Can't say I do when we're going by account ID's anyways.

lahnaboy

I think its for that reason if someday there will be option to set your character name visible instead of psn name.

Kaitona

lahnaboy wrote: »

I think its for that reason if someday there will be option to set your character name visible instead of psn name.

That some day can't come fast enough. You spend ages at the character select screen picking a name that isn't taken then log into the game and rarely see it. It has to change.

RedTalon

ArgonianAssassin wrote: »

Skwor wrote: »

Seriously you do not understand whey everyone needs a unique name? Just as some kind of character in the name you want or us a sir name as part of your name.

Can't say I do when we're going by account ID's anyways.

Even though your seeing account ids, still naming your char gives its other ids for handling items, if they ever need to look into things your being accuse of and so on, each of those things need to be tag has a light example The items your chars are holding are not going by your account id

UrQuan

Your character name can be used to mail something, invite you to group, etc. It has to be unique for that. Also, it's probably the primary key for the character record.

Sithisvoid

You could be bigDave56789 though.

KhajitFurTrader

The game allows up to two spaces or hyphens in character names. So there could be a Dave Grohl and a Dave Matthews at the same time on the same server. Or any Dave with a unique middle and/or family name.

Moonscythe

I once ran into a wood elf girl who looked almost exactly like me and was also named Ravyn (with a Y) but she had a last name that was different so we knew we weren't looking in a mirror

BigM

You can have same first name as long as you set second name to something different. Not that hard guys.

Kaitona

I think you've missed my point. You're not referred to by your characters name in the game, you're referred to by your account name. Your character name is only for your benefit, no one elses. So why not allow players to have the same character name? The mail in the game is sent to the account as no one knows your characters name except you (unless you tell them). Someone said they may change it in the future, which is the ONLY reason I can see that we pick unique character names.

The point of my original post was to point out the frustration of making a character now with a unique name when it seems to be for nothing. No one sees your character name. A better system would be to display your character name in the game and place in a lower font your account ID under your name. Other games reserve that spot for your guild name.

Drazhar14

They should have added a first name and last name input for behind the scene character management on the server. Only first name would show up if you wanted to go by Dave (and there could be multiple Daves running around), but each character could be specifically identified still by their last name. Maybe add a toggle in game if you want to see last names or not. Obviously if another player picked the exact same first and last name as you, you would still need to pick another, but overall it would have been much better.

UrQuan

Kaitona wrote: »

I think you've missed my point. You're not referred to by your characters name in the game, you're referred to by your account name. Your character name is only for your benefit, no one elses. So why not allow players to have the same character name? The mail in the game is sent to the account as no one knows your characters name except you (unless you tell them). Someone said they may change it in the future, which is the ONLY reason I can see that we pick unique character names.

The point of my original post was to point out the frustration of making a character now with a unique name when it seems to be for nothing. No one sees your character name. A better system would be to display your character name in the game and place in a lower font your account ID under your name. Other games reserve that spot for your guild name.

You don't understand how the system works. Mail can be sent to your account OR to your character. For example, hireling mail, rewards for the worthy, your invitation to Cyrodiil - those are all sent to your character rather than to your account. If you know someone's character name, you can also mail something directly to that character, or you can invite some to a group or a guild by using the character name.

You also don't seem to have understood what I said about how I suspect the character name is used as the primary key for the character records in the character table (or possibly as part of a composite primary key). A primary key is a unique identifier used to identify individual records within a table of a database. If this were a CRM or some other application where you create records for real people it would be ludicrous to use the name as a primary key, because in the real world it's not uncommon for multiple people to have the same name. In a game like this, though, where all of the names are made up anyway, and some of the game functions need to use that name as a unique identifier in any case, it makes sense to use it as the primary key.

KhajitFurTrader

Kaitona wrote: »

The point of my original post was to point out the frustration of making a character now with a unique name when it seems to be for nothing.

In MMOs, a character entity's name is usually marked as being a unique key in the server's database, i.e. it's value must be unique to the whole database and cannot occur twice. This is for all kinds of reasons, as it is usually the character entity that's referenced in all transactions, logging, etc. while playing it, and not the account handle.

RedTalon

KhajitFurTrader wrote: »

Kaitona wrote: »

The point of my original post was to point out the frustration of making a character now with a unique name when it seems to be for nothing.

In MMOs, a character entity's name is usually marked as being a unique key in the server's database, i.e. it's value must be unique to the whole database and cannot occur twice. This is for all kinds of reasons, as it is usually the character entity that's referenced in all transactions, logging, etc. while playing it, and not the account handle.

Yup account ids are used for other reference points in the system like the bank that many chars used by the same id, it helps tell which char is taking what from the bank and so on, has a light exmpale...but his issues seems to be more with the fasct how he hates the console ui cause it doesn't show your char name to others not so much with the system, but hope he is getting the idea on why there needs to be both now.

Rylana

Im still mad at the ass that took Rylana

>_> I had to add the damn Dionysis from my @handle because of it. That person hasnt played in a year. (have them friended)

Hypertionb14_ESO

i dont get at all why 2 people cant have the same character name..

i mean its possible to run into someone with the same first, middle, last name IRL after all..

RedTalon

Hypertionb14_ESO wrote: »

i dont get at all why 2 people cant have the same character name..

i mean its possible to run into someone with the same first, middle, last name IRL after all..

The simple answer is if you haven't been follwing things it would be a coding nightmare, the systems mmos use need things clearly defiine to a letterr and so things can be pulled up in a orderly way.

Lets say you had two chars named Tom The Dude and they both go into a bank at the same time(or any time really) or worse yet are attached to the same account, the system would start having trouble telling which tom is trying to go into which bank, it could create an error where one player gets access to another account's shared bank

Just my two crowns and could be wrong

UrQuan

Hypertionb14_ESO wrote: »

i dont get at all why 2 people cant have the same character name..

i mean its possible to run into someone with the same first, middle, last name IRL after all..

Go back and read the posts above yours. It's been explained.

RedTalon

UrQuan wrote: »

Hypertionb14_ESO wrote: »

i dont get at all why 2 people cant have the same character name..

i mean its possible to run into someone with the same first, middle, last name IRL after all..

Go back and read the posts above yours. It's been explained.

I hope it got through this time between the one guy and a few other people, think its about has clear has it can be done hope my example of what type of system error could and likely would happen was decent

waterfairy

I hear you but you need to be original Dave

God-eater

Originally, we were going to have character names displayed, but there was too much clash with XBL requirements - a lot of duplication, apparently - so ZOS scrapped it and just went with XBL - thus, GTs displayed. Unlikely to change, for Xbone, anyway. ZOS decided immersion was not the priority.

"Hurry, YOLOSWAG2746 - the vanguard of the Pact is upon us and NoobslayerSTEVE holds the tower alone!".

Kaitona

RedTalon wrote: »

Hypertionb14_ESO wrote: »

i dont get at all why 2 people cant have the same character name..

i mean its possible to run into someone with the same first, middle, last name IRL after all..

The simple answer is if you haven't been follwing things it would be a coding nightmare, the systems mmos use need things clearly defiine to a letterr and so things can be pulled up in a orderly way.

Lets say you had two chars named Tom The Dude and they both go into a bank at the same time(or any time really) or worse yet are attached to the same account, the system would start having trouble telling which tom is trying to go into which bank, it could create an error where one player gets access to another account's shared bank

Just my two crowns and could be wrong

So it would be impossible for them to code it like this:

Player 1:
Character name: Dave
Account: NoobSlayer2321

Player 2:
Character name: Dave
Account: MadSkillzor33

In the game, they're both named Dave, beneath their name is their account ID (where the guild name usually sits).

The system recognizes them as Dave.NoobSlayer2321 and Dave.MadSkillzor33. You send mail to Dave, you are prompted with a box that asks 'which Dave' and the account name MadSkillzor33 is one of the options.

I really don't think it's that hard to work out. You make it sound like it's rocket science. The current naming conventions in this game are terrible, easily the worst I've seen in any online game. I leave you with this quote:

nastuug wrote: »

Zazaaji wrote: »

It's been confirmed that character names will not display on console versions.
From the ESO Live Q&A (http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/1797630#Comment_1797630):

Why is my gamertag displayed instead of my character name or UserID? – Lots of console beta testers
~
We display PSN IDs on PS4 and gamertags on Xbox One instead of character name or UserID to be consistent with the already established social mechanisms available through Microsoft and Sony.

Bad move ZoS, bad..... Neverwinter, FFXIV and many other console MMOs for XB1 and/or PS4 display character names by default. There's no reason you couldn't. Saying it's to keep consistent with Microsoft of Playstation mechanisms is just..... a lazy excuse. Like the lack of text chat support, this will completely KILL any role playing because people can't have the names they want. Instead of an Argonian named "Spears-In-You" in a roleplay, it will show as "xXxSwagMasta420xXx" or something.

What is your thoughts on this?
-

Gandrhulf_Harbard

Skwor wrote: »

Seriously you do not understand whey everyone needs a unique name?

Nope.

There's absolutely no need at all for characters to need a unique name.

IRL I know three John Smiths, two Dave Thompsons, and two Michael Lees.

My brain doesn't melt trying to resolve this.

Neither will a properly built database.

Some games already allow non-unique names because internally the character is logged as {Character Name}{Account ID}, and in-game the {Character Name} will be visible, often with the addition of {Guild Name} and / or {Title}.

The only possible reason I can think of why ESO can't manage this is lazy coding.

All The Best

KhajitFurTrader

Kaitona wrote: »

The system recognizes them as Dave.NoobSlayer2321 and Dave.MadSkillzor33. You send mail to Dave, you are prompted with a box that asks 'which Dave' and the account name MadSkillzor33 is one of the options.

I really don't think it's that hard to work out. You make it sound like it's rocket science. The current naming conventions in this game are terrible, easily the worst I've seen in any online game.

If it were that easy, you don't think that developers would have jumped on it a long time ago? You'd think that they voluntarily forego the KISS principle on purpose just to spite the players? Why don't we see more (or any) games that do it the way you proposed? Having a character's entity name as a unique key is a failsafe, surefire, and proven method to unambiguously identify an entity and to eliminate any possibility for mixing up said entity with another one.

In your example, how many thousands of Daves would a sender have to choose from on a megaserver? What if they never saw the recipient, but only chatted with them? What if having to remember two identifying characteristics instead of one is more error prone? Accidentally sending mail to the wrong recipient can be painful, what if this becomes a high-volume, never-ending source of customer service tickets?

ESO has one of the better character naming schemes out there, allowing for a lot of flexibility. If I can't be "Dave", because someone took it already (kudos to him), in other games I'd have to resort to tricks like "Dâvê" or even "xxxDavExxx". In ESO, I can easily become "Dave the Dragonslayer", "Dave Matthews", or even "Dave-I-am", if not already taken. I'm more bound by my own imagination, and less bound by the naming rules. That's more leeway you see anywhere else. It allows for names that anyone can identify themselves with, and which can be easily identified by others.

The discussion is a little bit moot, though, as interactions between characters are usually referenced by account name, which may be advantageous in some areas, but not in others. However, most players have the wish or need to play a beautiful, unique snowflake within the masses of a massively multiplayer game. A unique name is part and parcel of this. There would be way more complains about characters having the same name than there are now about it not being possible.

Vorpal_Spork

Skwor wrote: »

Seriously you do not understand whey everyone needs a unique name? Just as some kind of character in the name you want or us a sir name as part of your name.

You mean surname. And there's no practical code reason for different character names anymore on the console versions. They were just too lazy to change the way things work in the PC version and copy/pasted as much as they could.

Vorpal_Spork

KhajitFurTrader wrote: »

Why don't we see more (or any) games that do it the way you proposed? Having a character's entity name as a unique key is a failsafe, surefire, and proven method to unambiguously identify an entity and to eliminate any possibility for mixing up said entity with another one.

Because most MMO's have character names and this is the only one I know of that uses your PSN name. They could just as easily make mail and such account based like banks. The reason they did it like this is because it's less work to copy/paste as much of the PC version code as possible.

Kaitona

KhajitFurTrader wrote: »

Kaitona wrote: »

The system recognizes them as Dave.NoobSlayer2321 and Dave.MadSkillzor33. You send mail to Dave, you are prompted with a box that asks 'which Dave' and the account name MadSkillzor33 is one of the options.

I really don't think it's that hard to work out. You make it sound like it's rocket science. The current naming conventions in this game are terrible, easily the worst I've seen in any online game.

If it were that easy, you don't think that developers would have jumped on it a long time ago? You'd think that they voluntarily forego the KISS principle on purpose just to spite the players? Why don't we see more (or any) games that do it the way you proposed? Having a character's entity name as a unique key is a failsafe, surefire, and proven method to unambiguously identify an entity and to eliminate any possibility for mixing up said entity with another one.

In your example, how many thousands of Daves would a sender have to choose from on a megaserver? What if they never saw the recipient, but only chatted with them? What if having to remember two identifying characteristics instead of one is more error prone? Accidentally sending mail to the wrong recipient can be painful, what if this becomes a high-volume, never-ending source of customer service tickets?

ESO has one of the better character naming schemes out there, allowing for a lot of flexibility. If I can't be "Dave", because someone took it already (kudos to him), in other games I'd have to resort to tricks like "Dâvê" or even "xxxDavExxx". In ESO, I can easily become "Dave the Dragonslayer", "Dave Matthews", or even "Dave-I-am", if not already taken. I'm more bound by my own imagination, and less bound by the naming rules. That's more leeway you see anywhere else. It allows for names that anyone can identify themselves with, and which can be easily identified by others.

The discussion is a little bit moot, though, as interactions between characters are usually referenced by account name, which may be advantageous in some areas, but not in others. However, most players have the wish or need to play a beautiful, unique snowflake within the masses of a massively multiplayer game. A unique name is part and parcel of this. There would be way more complains about characters having the same name than there are now about it not being possible.

Have you played any other online games before like this one? From your post, I doubt it very much. I have played almost every major MMO that's been released over the past 15 years and this is the only one I've encountered with a naming system like this. DCUO is on consoles and it lets you use your character name, not your account name. Neverwinter Nights online lets you use your character name, not your account name. Whatever lame reason the company is feeding us just doesn't stack up. It can be changed, they choose not to change it. Stop drinking the cool aid for a minute and think outside the box.

KhajitFurTrader

Vorpal_Spork wrote: »

The reason they did it like this is because it's less work to copy/paste as much of the PC version code as possible.

You make it sound like using the exact same data base schemata over all platforms is something lazy. It's good programming sense and necessary to maintain a common code base. A common code base ensures that development time isn't unnecessarily dissipated over many different projects.

Vorpal_Spork

KhajitFurTrader wrote: »

Vorpal_Spork wrote: »

The reason they did it like this is because it's less work to copy/paste as much of the PC version code as possible.

You make it sound like using the exact same data base schemata over all platforms is something lazy. It's good programming sense and necessary to maintain a common code base. A common code base ensures that development time isn't unnecessarily dissipated over many different projects.

The chances of them ever touching the name code again are almost nonexistent. It won't make maintenance and updates any harder.