Glayde

Can't special characters simply be petitioned since they are against the 'rules'?

 

mikebro

They're forcing all people with special characters in their name to change them already. I don't know if this already happened or if it is coming in 2.3 but I remember reading it

 

Rane

They are not in Europe, but GMs there will change them to normal letters if you ask for it yourself because of issues with invites and the likes.

That was just with Cyrillic characters I believe, which were briefly being allowed for a while. Possibly because with Blizz EU's hiring Russian speaking guys, they want to introduce Russian realms/support

 

• Chicken

I think that only extended to a specific subset of character. E.G. They're not changing ö or ë, but they are changing אַ or בּ . (Changed the size on those two so they're actually distinguishable)

 

◊ Vectivus

I've petitioned to get Xhunterstevex changed and had it accomplish nothing. I think they're simply not going to enforce the naming conventions quite as strictly as they used to, especially with this change out.

I would very much like to see a complete ban on 'special' characters, though. If it's not a regular letter from the 26-letter alphabet, just flat-out force an on-login rename.

 

Opioid

Cut that to 25-letter alphabet and extend the verboten status to "x" altogether and it'll be an even more robust proposal, I think!

Maybe switch it with an apostrophe or two. Apostrophes are fantasy incarnate.

 

Zedd

I think this is an awsome change.
How many people didnt name their alts with names similar to their main? I know I did. (Zeddicus vs Zeddycus btw).
Now I hope for Race and Sex changes, Wich will never happen

 

Kuai

I wish for cosmetic changes such as the undead emo mask and the tiny BE earrings that became huge after a patch but I guess WotLK will provide these.

 

ANSeranov

This is kinda cool. I can't really see the harm in it, to be honest.

A ninja by any other name would still be a jerk. D:

[Yuuzu] [80 Draenei Shaman][Kilrogg]
[Soulu] [80 Draenei Death Knight][Kilrogg]
[Soulu] [80 Human Warrior][Durotan]
[Karina] [77 Draenei Paladin][Durotan]
[Ikarii] [70 Dwarven Rabbi][Durotan]

 

Rilah

I think it would be neat if wow allowed you to be a “traitor” and take your alliance characters to the horde side or vice versa. I’m sure many would trade sides.

 

Enova

Back to the realm of paid names, i'm likely going to reroll a Death Knight when the next expansion will be relased. So will everyone else for that matter, and here's where the pay per rename feature will come in handy.

Let's say you decide you like the death knight more than the original class you were playing. Now, you can have your characters' names reversed for 20 bucks, instead of having half the guild call you out on Ventrilo/Teamspeak by the old name and the other half by the reroll name - and maybe another(!) half on your RL name, if that's the case.

This is just one of the uses Blizzard is probably counting on, and although i'm not a fan of paying Blizz extra for such tings, i can't help but be awed by their mercantile genius. Sure, we're not 100% sure how the whole system will work, and all, but so far, i'd say it's not a bad thing overall, especially if we cross a few of those Legolas impersonators off the lists.

Guilty as charged ^

 

ebbv

This doesn't work. My brother tried it. The lowbie alt gets renamed.

 

pwyll

I think this will allow a lot of people with horrible alt names they re-rolled or leveled to max to finally get rid of a stupid name. My 19 twink turned into a 70 lock named Deathcoiled, and I just feel like a wanker every time I log her into game. Not that the feeling won't linger, I'm sure.

J'aime les femmes comme l'aime mon café: chaude, noire, et avec un cuillére dedans.

 

Devonia

Name change? Give me a race change please.

I hate being penalized in pvp for a choice I made 2 years ago when I was uninformed.

 

Ninjerk

Someone call me? Yeah, I wish my shaman's name was Ninjerk, kinda. I really have no idea why I chose this name, but I have an alt with the name of Ninjerk.

 

Metrosexuelf

Bah. Delete this.

 

Sayessa

You can't really swap names, because you have to do it in three steps (If one of your chars is A and the other one is B, you must rename A to C first, because A is already taken, so you can't do B->A) and there is a three month cooldown on name changes. You can always rename your old main to something else, or simply name your deathknight simliar to your main from the beginning.

 

seminarca

Pretty sure characters like ö and ë are illegal in places where they are not part of the normal character set (like on US servers, they'd probably be ok on Europe servers). The name "Florence" was already taken on my server when I transferred to it, so I named my character "Florençe" (funny ç in there). This was fine for about a year, but recently when I petitioned a GM for some random crap, they said it was illegal and that I would be forced to change it on next login (I was).

 

Mideci

I explain to people with accented or special characters in their name that they'll simply never be invited by me to anything and move on (US realm... in Europe, I'd be much more tolerant).

 

Hypatia

Yet another reason for me to be sad more people don’t use the Mac. It’s much easier to remember that ç is Alt-c and è is Alt-`-e on the Mac than that Alt-0231 and Alt-0232 are the same on Windows.

 

• Chicken

It's possible to configure Windows like it as well, unsure to which countries it extends, but a lot of the European versions of Windows default to that. For example I can type ç by simply first typing an apostrophe, and then a c, ë is by typing quotation marks followed by an e.

The only thing that takes some getting used to is having to hit space every time you use any character which can be used to type a letter not part of the standard 26-letter alphabet.

 

vorda

Or just be like us belgians/french with an Azerty keyboard layout. Still not convinced that qwerty is better for any reason but small laptops (since you dont have numpads there).

 

Oaken

Its also possible to use an escape sequence for the ASCII code for those special characters. Having said that, there is zero incentive for anybody at least in North America to even bother to try. Unless you are already a friend, why would they take the time to look up a special character sequence to be able to type your name?

 

Kombinat

Paid name changes do seem like a good idea. Some minor exceptions, but they're really minor. An asshat is an asshat no matter the name they go by. Seems reminiscent of the housecleaning CoV/CoH recently did on character names, as well, but I daren't suggest that blizzard is just following suit, do I?

That said, Folks just call me Kombi, no matter what character I'm playing on.

Looking forward to a whole lot of guys with legolas or a variation as their names having ten bucks to spend. It might give me less to get pissed off over.

 

GIJebus

Would have hoped they'd include some way to remodel their character at the same time although I believe I've heard that will come in either later patches or WotlK.

My guild hasn't stopped calling me by me last characters name so I might as well switch back. What I'm wondering though is if the other Mhedic changed realms or if they're allowing duplicates somehow now.

Edit: Am I reading this right?
"Once the name change is completed, your character's old name will be locked from use on the realm for 90 days. After that time, the old name becomes available again and can be claimed by anyone on-"

It was cut off but does that means someone can jack another players name?

Nevermind, attempted to steal names and I guess you can't take them from active characters. By now there's probably a ton of 'good' names already taken up by people who don't play anymore and they'll letting them back in.