#0 - Sept. 14, 2010, 9:04 a.m.
- What are the criteria for a GM to do a forced rename on someone else's long-term inactive character.
The Situation:
- I leveled this toon as Lakhesis, had about ~70 days /played on it when my guild did an en masse server transfer. As I like the name but it was already taken on Blackhand, I took LakhesÃs (with an accent over the i)... at present this toon alone has over 150 days /played & I've grown rather attached to the name, but would prefer it without the stupid accent.
- The character who had the name is a level 18 night elf priest. According to warcraftrealms.com they've been stuck on that level since at least 16 Jan '07. I've infrequently looked to check if the toon has been deleted.. it was unspec'd - presumably due to the mass respec - before WotLK came out, and then went completely inactive. It was reactivated at some point during WotLK but was still unspec'd last I saw & has since gone inactive again.
- I've recently had guildies who have been able to get forced name-changes on 3rd party inactive toons so they can buy a name change for their toons. These guildies were informed that the character being renamed cannot have been logged in within the last 6 months. There was a little confusion as to whether it was the character or account that couldn't have logged in, but either probably works in my favour given the circumstances. If this 6-month criteria is met, they were told that GMs will do a forced rename on request.
- I put in a ticket asking about this in-game, I've included the full response below, but the quick summary is "We do it at our discretion but we won't in your situation at present".
- My interpretation of this, based off the information from friends & the distinctly oblique critera from the GM response, is that the inactive nelf priest hasn't been inactive (again) for 6 months yet.
- Therefore it seems like my best approach is just to re-request the forced name-change every month until whatever Bliz's internal critera are happen to be met. This strikes me as a waste of both customer service reps & my own time ("are we there yet? are we there yet?" etc etc), which is why I'm asking here for a bit more clarity.
- Obviously I recognise there are potentially privacy issues which probably prevent me being told exactly how long I need to wait on any one specific inactive toon, but I'd appreciate an outline of the general criteria involved.
Thanks.
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Copy of my ticket & the GM response:
Issue:
I'm told that if an account/toon has been inactive long term it can have its name reset(?).
There's a level 18 night elf priest called Lakhesis. It's gone inactive on wowarmory twice since BC, and has never had its talent points re-allocated since the pre-WotLK mass talent reset. I assume the character is completely inactive & will remain so.
Can you do a forced name reset on that toon so that I can buy a name-change & alter my character's name from LakhesÃs to Lakhesis, or was I misinformed?
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GM Reponse:
Greetings,
I apologise but freeing up names from players is a very tricky process because we do not want to incur negative effects on players simply because they take a leave of absence.
In this process, it is Blizzard's sole discretion whether or not we do this. For the sake of privacy, you will not be given any kind of information on the other account.
Unfortunately in this case, we will not be able to free up the name. I am sorry for any inconvenience.
