A lot of great names are already registered, but nobody uses them in the game (the players are not active). So I suggest deleting/renaming characters after a certain amount of time, if the player does not pay the subscription fee and does not log in. E.g. one or two years.

and which "cool" name ye be lookin' after hun? : )

No. Be creative.

Sorry but PaKettle is mine and I aint givin it up

No. Be creative.

+1

Only if it was like five years unsubbed. Even then I don't like it. And try contacting the player first via his registered email before changing the name, to give him time to defend it.

No. Some of us have jobs that eat up months at a time. We have at least one doctor, one lawyer, I myself am often gone anywhere from a few months to a year due to work.

-1 to delete old players.
Since you already can delete your own chars, all done, move on

Eh, whatever; I rarely play, but I maintain two paid accounts. If you haven't paid for two years, they can strip the name off the character and free it up for all I care. I know of at least one name that I really wanted for an RP that has been gobbled up and never used for years - annyoing.

The character shouldn't be deleted, though; you'd just have to pick a new name upon payment and log in.

I'm very much against the op. VO has always been a game where folk come and go as RL dictates. Change the conditions under which people return and they might not bother.

sigh.
-1 to the O.P.
same for some of his other weak suggestions.

It is notable that we have a significant population of characters belonging to trial accounts which have never been subscribed. We could do a mass-rename of characters on unsubbed accounts that haven't logged on in like.. 3+ years or something, and perhaps get some useful character names back?

3 years sounds reasonable for renaming characters, but it should go by time since last subbed, not last log-in. Anyone paying to keep their account active should be able to keep their name, even if they haven't logged in.

Eh, i'd be pretty pissed if I lost a character name after being subscribed for a year and unsubscribed for 3.

Dropping names off very old trial accounts seems pretty safe though since those people never even showed enough interest in the game to pony up $10 for one stinking month of play.

Nooo, you can't rename all of BLAK! It'll be like 98% less funny!

I agree, restrict it to accounts that have never subbed at all. If you really wanted to rename characters in accounts that have subbed but have been unsubbed for years, you could send an email to the address associated with their account first, giving them a month or two warning. Some of them might even come back and start playing again.

Many many good names like Han Solo, Boba Fett, Luke Skywalker to give a few from just star wars, are never seen in game, kind of a waste.

I'm sure there are 1000's of good names out there that people have wanted but didn't get because some guy took em for a unused trial account.

Do you really want to see idiots named "Luke Skywalker"?

well, no, but you get my point