Roxy Couturier

Not really. Many that have tried SL have some experience with other game systems and have experienced the frustration of 'Oh shit.. that name is taken already.'

The SL system is closer kin to an email service. Which far more people are used to than MMO gaming log-on/character name. MMO log-ons make sense when you have several characters under one account. More people are used to email and chat services that have the account name visible.

Coming from WoW and CoH it really wasn't that hard to figure out when I signed up to SL. I just don't think the average user is as dumb as you portray in your posts.

I think where people got frustrated was in the lack of choices of last names, not that they had them in the first place.

I just don't see anyone that who, on not realizing that the name would be displayed, and to whom naming is important, not going back and making a new account. I did it when i was playing on AoLs MUD Neverwinter Nights in the late 90's. I don't see it as a ragequit point. It might possibly be an added straw, as it were, but again, I just don't see people as that dumb as to not understand it would be their SL name.

The people I've spoken to that have 'number names' under the old system were impatient with trying to get the first name they wanted with the available Lastnames when they signed up. Again, it was the choice of lastnames that was the frustration point, not that they were there in the first place.

(On a side note, I know one person with 'numbers' in their name that was very clever when coupled with the lastname she chose. I lost most of my 'numbers-in-the-name' snobbishness when I figured it out.)

I agree with this if you look at it in light of wanting a particular firstname that was unavailable with the choice of lastnames on sign up. Lots of people took something that was 'close enough' just to get on with things.

Umm you realize you're disagreeing with your own 'They don't know it's their name in world' arguement here, right? How can new users think their username will be hidden by display name if they don't know about display names?

The big problem with the current system is the same as the old one multiplied a thousandfold. Namely (no pun intended) the diminishing pool of names available. Sure, some people that have MMO experience can come up with clever single word names, even some that don't have that experience can as well, but the majority isn't able to and fall back on email/chat naming conventions that they're used to.

LL wanting to cash in on Facebook was the main driver behind single name logons and display names imo. It wasn't any sort of fix (except to 'fix' a workaround to Facebooks RL info requirement). LL should have read the writing on the wall (again no pun intended) with the pushback Blizzard recieved from it's userbase when they wanted to make displaying RL info just to post on their forums.

I don't think people adverse to display names hate them so much as distrust them. What I mean is, that it's never going to be a situation where turning off usernames is going to be common. As I said previously, it's not an inherently trustworthy system. It's a social system built on sand.

Again, they weren't misled. I imagine it's more frustration at a diminishing pool of names coupled with a bit of jealosy thrown in when they see old users with last names.

And again, I think reversion back to the old system, keeping display names and expanding the choice of last names would accomplish far more than any overlay system. What happens when you get tired of your overlay name? You're back to square one .. either it's unchangable and you're stuck with it, or it's changable and not trustworthy on a social scale.

Other MMO's allow name changes for a fee. CoH does so as a store option. Not just for character names, but for your global handle as well. If LL wants to cash in on any gaming trend, it should be the micro-transactions they pioneered in the first place. This allows flexability (for a fee) and creates a more solid social system as name changes would be a rarity and longer lasting when they're done.

On this, I agree. But I think it would rely on LL making getting the name you want from the get go an easier process. It can be done by expanding the old system, not scrapping it and building a new one from scratch.

Display names is a useful tool and should be kept. But it shouldn't (and never will be) the solution to SLs naming woes. Many in the user base tried to tell LL just that way back when. (Rodvik, are you listening?)

Just like everything else for SL... Crowdsource!!

(actually, now that I think about it, this would be one of the perfect uses of social media for SL. Names suggested by the usebase and voted on to be added to the next cycle of names. Additionally, adding older lastnames would be nice too. New blood to the old 'families' as it were..)

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Aribeth Zelin

What about a phonebook? Get them from around the world or from a very cosmop city - you know, like San Fran...

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Faerycat Designs In World -Marketplace 1- Marketplace 2

Marine Kelley

Well I believe it is not as easy to pick up new surnames as it looks... Imagine you are the one paid to do this on a part-time or even a full-time basis (I have no idea whether someone at LL was paid full-time to do this, but I would not be surprised).

Every month (or so) :

- Search for new names that sound original (well, duh, just look at any TV show or go out in the street), that's the easy part.
- Every name must have at least two letters and at most twenty (I don't know about the actual upper limit, this is an example). So far so good.
- Make sure all names are easy to pronounce. "Swkygrgzy" might be easy to pronounce in Polish, I don't know (I don't speak Polish), but not in English.
- All names must be in one word only, perhaps with a particle, so Spanish-sounding names would be harder to come up with.
- Make sure a name is not already taken. Sounds dumb, but I have the hardest time figuring out a "Triellis" from a "Trellis". Both surnames exist in SL.
- Make sure to have at least a couple names for most of the biggest countries. USA, UK, Australia, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Brazil, Belgium, Austria, Korea, Japan...
- Make sure no name is offending in ANY language (gah that's a lot tougher already). Even if you made up a name for one language (for example romanji for Japanese) that is offending in another (ex : "fukushita", "sukudiku", "kissimaihasu").
- Make sure it does not infringe ANY copyright. At all. Not even one that you have never heard of. Cause LL would be sued and lose, and you'd be fired.
- Make sure to never read ANY forum where residents complain about how sucky the names of this month sound. You'd be disheartened.
- Repeat next month.

I'm not that surprised that they eventually stopped delivering new surnames... But for the record, I did like that they proposed names. I wish they hadn't stopped, while still introducing display names.

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90% of Sturgeon's law is crap.

Rosemaery Lorefield

Uh. rawr?

Rosemaery Lorefield

I'm not getting the absolute rage of some people on either side of this mess.
It's great that some people feel that they have life all fucking figured out, but the condescension towards those who may not, or who may not care, or just think differently?
It's utterly baffling.

Penny Patton

That....doesn't really relate to anything I said tho.

But LL doesn't present SL like an e-mail service. They present it more like an MMO. And it's not just MMOs that work that way. Steam, some web providers, some social sites (Pretty sure even Facebook has you use a username that isn't the same as your displayed profile name.), etcetera.

I'm not portraying them as "dumb", I'm saying that people come in with a very reasonable expectation which turns out to be, against all reason, untrue in the case of SL.

Several times on the official forums I've seen new users creating threads to complain that they entered something like their e-mail address or other personal username choice when creating their account under the expectation that it would remain private, or at least not displayed above their avatar's head at all times.

These people aren't dumb, SL's sign-up process is really that misleading.

A lot of people, myself included, didn't like being forced to choose a last name from a list. There was a very vocal group of SL users who wanted to be able to use their own last names, or names of their choosing, rather than being required to choose from a list of pre-made names.


You might not see it, but it's happening.

And there are ways around this problem which don't limit people to a list of surnames they must choose from.

I suggested at least two already in this very thread!

No, I'm actually not. For pretty much every MMO in existence, you create an avatar and choose its name AFTER creating your account. Usually at first log-in.

SL is not an MMORPG, but they're kissing cousins. It's reasonable to assume a similar progression.

LL intended display names to get around this problem, but then diminished display names and splitting the userbase because of it.

If display names were shown in name tags and usernames were not, then this would not be an issue. There'd be other issues , sure, but this would not be among them.

No, like Communism, Facebook is just a red herring.

The very real user outcry over several problems with the old name system, combined with low completed registration rates, were the main drive behind single name logons and display names.

This is not my opinion, this is public knowledge.

I agree about the distrust, however if LL turned off usernames as being shown in nametags by default in a viewer release tomorrow I'd wager most users would leave it like that.

There'd be a vocal minority crying bloody murder, but given how visible usernames are even without them displayed in the nametags the problems they'd be expecting would never materialize and the outcry would eventually die out.

Yes, they actually were. LL has presented people with a familiar situation but with results which contradict the majority of similar experiences. It's not intentional, but it is misleading all the same!
Like I keep saying, if usernames were not shown in nametags this wouldn't be an issue. Not saying there wouldn't be other issues, but this would not be a source of jealousy for new users if LL had not diminished display names while, once in-world, presenting usernames as your "real" avatar name.

Ok. You're wrong.

Um...no. We do not live in a binary reality where everything is an either/or.

I explained this in detail earlier, but for your convenience I'll explain it again. Separating avatar names from the unchangable username system would allow avatar names to be changed. However, no one really needs to change their avatar name every week, and taking the limitations of display names would serve the purpose role-players and people who just want clever titles and nicknames, so LL could set up the new name system so that avatar names could be changed, however there would either be a much stricter limitation that display names currently have, or, as you go on to suggest yourself in contradiction of your either/or assertion, an actual monetary cost associated with the name change.

Why did you include that previous paragraph when you go on to show it as being entirely incorrect in your very next?

But my solution achieves it better, offering people more freedom, as much or more than people wanted to begin with, while still avoiding the pitfalls of the current system.

The problem with display names is that they go to far with the freedom, letting people change them frequently and being able to use existing names, creating the trust/identity issues. At the same time LL waffled on them and didn't go far enough, diminishing display names by setting usernames as shown by default. Ironically, this only served to reinforce the more irrational trust/identity issues people have with display names.

I never said the current system was ideal, only that the old system wasn't great. I dislike the current setup immensely. I've suggested better solutions that would have addressed all the concerns people have with both the old and current name systems.



Sure, or just let people choose their own last names.

Or whether or not they want a last name at all.

Or let them have middle names.

Or let them add other little titles and whatnot to their name.

Etcetera.

Give people that level of freedom. Longer names, allowing spaces, dashes, periods, etcetera, and you've essentially given people the ability to create their a username they'll be happy with even if the username they want at first is already taken.

Put a little sociology by only suggesting name-like names, encouraging people to avoid AoL style names, putting screenshots with nametags shown over avatar heads all with name-like names, and you'll diminish the whole issue of AoL style screen names about as much as you could ever hope to. Much more than simply reinstating the old system but with more last names could hope to achieve.

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The Digital Pasture - SL from a cow's point of view. When the cow is also a designer.

Adeon Writer

Anyone who doesn't see a problem with the current system needs to sign up for an account and try to get a normal sounding name.

License plate usernames are here to stay.

Nothing Linden Lab tells new signups will change that, it is the inevitable result of the current namespace.

It's best to just accept that usernames are not avatar names.

Sredni Eel

You can have a non-license plate style name with a little imagination. I just created "OkapiJohn".

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http://avatarbizarre.wordpress.com

Adeon Writer

Yes, because you're coming in already accepting that you'll take any name that let's you in. You also knew to ram in a surname.

"Stuff in a surname" is not going to be on your mind, people are not going to do that, and it would be incredibly silly for LL to suggest it because it's just a username.

The problem is that once in-world, it's your avatar name. LL needs to prompt after the first log in to give a name to their avatar.

Penny Patton

Agreed 100%

The problem is that even LL themselves have waffled on "Display Names as avatar names", mostly due to the fear of identity theft, griefing and impersonation issues leading the existing userbase to demand usernames be shown in avatar nametags by default.

Pseronally, I turned usernames off day one and never looked back. The problems people imagine simply aren't possible given how visible usernames are even without having them hanging over everyone's heads at all times.

Menchor Barbosa

One thing people can do is do a first and last as a single word name then divide it in the display name, I have seen several of these and they were recent avatars.

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Baroness Menchor, the Deadly, of the Great Army of the Invincible Infidel, Whose Great Swarms of Evil and Horror Laid Waste to the Souls of a Million True Believers and Left Their Souls Rotting in the Summer Sun for the Buzzards to to Ravish as Their Souls Sunk to the Depths of Torment and Hopelessness, Abandoned by Their Gods.

Youth and strength can almost always be overcome by old age and treachery

Rebel Television

I loved trying to catch some of the clever references Lindens put in with last names. I've probably forgotten most that I've seen, but one example would be Discworld (Weatherwax, Morpork, Ogg).

Penny Patton

Meet

Adeon Writer

Yes, it's an excellent way to spot alts.