naming-system
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The Think Tank: The best MMORPG character naming systems
My first MMO was Ultima Online, where character naming rules were so unrestricted that it wasn't uncommon for people to copy names from others to pass themselves off as other players, usually for espionage and infiltration purposes. My guild even lost a guild base that way once to a particularly savvy spy with the same name as one of our officers! Subsequent MMOs, all the way into the present day, usually curtail such exploits with harsh naming conventions, including WildStar, which made recently headlines with a botched reservation system for its unique names (in fact, the registration ends tomorrow!). But players don't seem any happier with unique names than with copycat names. I polled the Massively writers about their opinions on the best naming systems in MMOs and how they'd like to see naming systems improved in general.
