How difficult would it be to make these actual physical deeds that can be purchased from the platinum vendor and used without staff assistance? Cuz that'd be great...
There are certain rules that have to be followed and the staff member that does your name change has to check to make sure that you aren't breaking those rules before you can get your name changed. Also, there are some (limited) situations where you can have a name changed free of cost, and in those situations, you wouldn't be required to use the name change deed to do the change. For these reasons, it is pretty much required that you have human intervention when it comes to using Name Change Deeds.
How does any other game do it then? Xbox live, starcraft2, WoW, OSI, etc. all have naming restrictions in place yet the entire name change process is automated and hassle-free. Furthermore, if a player feels s/he is owed a free name change then s/he can still page staff to verify.
I don't know about any of those other games. I just know that with the guidelines that @Chris has put together about name changes, each one is carefully considered. The GMs probably prefer to leave that as a personal service, rather than an automated system, to make sure that things are done correctly. Basically, I assume it's a matter of choice on the part of the Staff here. We have a very active staff who are usually on during peak times, so getting staff help in doing NCD shouldn't be a problem. What is the reason for the post? Did you try to do a name change, but find difficulty with it? Or, are you simply curious as to why it's not automated?
You will need Staff to answer your original question. Anybody else is just guessing and adding their opinion. Perhaps you want to tag some Staff or PM them your suggestion?
The one time I used one I put it in my backpack, paged staff with the details, left the toon logged in and went to bed. Next day I had a response waiting and the name was changed. Considering the system in place this seems like the easiest way to me.
Both. It doesn't matter to me if staff is online 23hrs per day, if I can only play during the 24th hour. I suppose I could send up my request and go to bed, hoping nothing is lost in translation but I'd rather not. I guess I'm just a control freak in that regard.
Lost in translation? Just be clear in your help page, I've done the page a gm with the deed in pack and go to bed trick many times and it always works.
Uhh its not permanent... if something was "lost in translation" I am sure staff will work with you to get it right and not make you buy a name change deed each time you need to tweek it
I got 2 toons names changed within 10 min. Buy the deed and put in backpack, page with with new name and go make a sandwich.....
So people don't make illegal names. I agree some things could use some automation, but I don't think this is not one of them. Name interpretation needs a human eye.
This is a system that, if fully automated with no supervision at all, would likely be abused. Have you researched the guidelines that must be followed when changing a name? They are specific. I'm not even sure how they would automate it. Again, I don't know how the other game's do it. Perhaps they don't have such stringent guidelines.
I can just make a newbie character with any name I want, and it has the bonus of a new character ID so you can't exploit the website to find out who it is etc.. I don't really see any reason why the NCD can't be automated. There's either unique names here, or there isn't, and there already "isn't". A NCD can use the same function as character creation to prevent illegal names, and I believe already exists in default runUO anyway. Why it was decided to make deeds on UOR this way is beyond me, but it doesn't really matter.
