I don't really care which. But it is ridiculous that in creating a new alt, that my first three choices from the random generator are taken. I can only imagine it is worse for player chosen names.

Either the name pool needs to be culled or you need remove the names with the highest usage and replace them with new splats of text that are supposed to suggest an alien / foreign name.

True. We'll look at this.

And perhaps have the random name generator automatically check whether the name it creates is free, and re-roll if it is not. Not a big deal, but might help with making that first impression.

Allow accounts that are not subbed, to log on to at least the character selection screen, where they can see what characters they have, and have the option to delete them.

- and/or -

On the website, in the "Character Stats" page, add an option to delete characters.

- and -

On the website, in the "ACCOUNT INFO" page, add an option to delete account. The whole account, characters and all.

How about:

1) Accounts that have never subbed get their characters deleted after X period of time.

2) Accounts that have not logged in within the last 2 years get their characters deleted.

Could you modify 2) to:

2) Accounts that have had AN ATTEMPT to log in within the last 2 years get their characters deleted.

Not everyone can or wants to sub every 2 years to keep their accounts alive.

Better yet, consider how much total time an account spent subbed. Because an account that was maintained for eight years and then ignored for two should not have its characters deleted. An account that only existed for a month, on the other hand, may as well be wiped.

And send the account owner an email at least 30 days in advance of taking any action, giving them a chance to come back and revive their character. It's more polite, for one thing, and it might even get some old players back in the game.

I agree with tinbot about facilitating character deletion.

2) Accounts that have not logged in within the last 2 years get their characters deleted.

I hope there isn't any danger of this actually happening. There's no reason to dissuade vets from returning and I suspect that the number of characters that people have invested time in remains relatively small.

First: give people the option to delete characters and accounts, even when they are not subbed.

Second: email campaign to inform all account owners of the change, so old players will voluntarily come and delete scratch/spam characters.

Third: Every email that bounces back as recipient not found be put on the short list for deletion.

Forth: Combine ideas presented here (like those listed above) be used to refine the list for deletion.

I think as a priority, any character name that matches a game generated name pattern be targeted.

But as a first step, get old (and new) players to voluntarily help the name clean up as much as possible.

FYI, last week we did a database sweep and renamed all characters held by accounts that had never subscribed and had not logged in for at least five years. We renamed their characters to the same name with a "zero" digit in front, taking them out of the path of the random-name generator.

We definitely need to do more, like validating random names offered by the client in advance, but this has probably mitigated things for now. I think it affected something like 36,000 old characters.

My vote goes to use some real names, from different cultures...

Itani: Oriental and African names
Serco: European names
UIT: Arabic and Latin names

something in that lines, create distintion per nation also in "families" or surnames... and repeating the first name, as "Salim Saalani" and "Salim Mufarraz"

Or some rules to random-name generator to make them "sound" different, like allowing multiple consonants for Serco, and favour multiple vowels for Itani...

-1 to alloh as usual

Though explicitly using real names would be a bad idea, the idea of making the styles of names different does have plenty of merit, and the specific differences could certainly be based on differences associated with similar real-life cultures. Or even fictional cultures.

But this really belongs in a different thread, Alloh.